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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



THE MYTHS OF THE NEW 
WORLD : A Treatise on the Symbolism 
and Mythology of the Red Race of America. 
Second edition, revised. Large 121110, $2.50. 

THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT: 

Its Source and Aim. A Contribution to the 
Science and Philosophy of Religion. Large 
i2mo, $2.50. 



/ 



THE 



MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD 



SYMBOLISM AND MYTHOLOGY 



EED EACE OF AMEEICA 

• jC BY 

DANIEL G/BKINTON, A.M., M.D. 



Member of the American. Philosophical Society, the American 
Philological Society, the Historical Societies of Pa., Wis., 
R. I., etc. Author of " The Religious Sentiment : its 
Source and Aim,'''' " The Arawack Language of 
Guiana," Editor of By ing tori's '•'■Grammar 
of the Choctaw Language,'''' etc., etc. 



SECOND EDITION, REVISED. 



NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1876. 



A TREATISE 



ON THE 



OF THE 





CorVRTGHT 

BY HENRY HOLT. 
1876. 



John F. Trow & Son, Printers, 
205-213 East 12TH St., New York, 




PREFACE TO THE FIKST EDITION. 



I have written this work more for the thoughtful 
general reader than the antiquary. It is a study of an 
obscure portion of the intellectual history of our species 
as exemplified in one of its varieties. 

What are man's earliest ideas of a soul and a God, 
and of his own origin and destiny ? Why do we find 
certain myths, such as of a creation, a flood, an after- 
world ; certain symbols, as the bird, the serpent, the 
cross ; certain numbers, as the three, the four, the seven — - 
intimately associated with these ideas by every race ? 
What are the laws of growth of natural religions ? How 
do they acquire such an influence, and is this influence 
for good or evil? Such are some of the universally 
interesting questions which I attempt to solve by an 
analysis of the simple faiths of a savage race. * * 

Philadelphia, 
April, 1868. 



PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



Since the first edition of this work appeared, the 
study of primitive man has been taken up by several 
eminent writers. So far as their labors have borne upon 
the red race I have endeavored to profit by them, and 
also by the additional linguistic material which has been 
published during the same period. 

While I owe various corrections to the criticisms, 
generally kindly, which the work has called forth, I 
have not found reason to alter the leading views pre- 
viously maintained. Where apparently weak points in 
the argument have been indicated, I have given more 
in detail the evidence on which they rest. The only 
important modification is in Chapter V., where the 
" Religion of Sex " is developed at greater length than 
in the former edition, and a wider meaning attributed 
to it. 

Philadelphia, 

January, 1876. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL CONSIDERATION'S ON THE RED RACE. 

PAGE 

Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, 
modified by peculiarities of race and nation. — The peculiarities of 
the red race: 1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Na- 
tive modes of writing by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and 
phonetic signs. These various methods compared in their influ- 
ence on the intellectual faculties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the 
history of the world. 3. Beyond all others, a hunting race. — 
Principal linguistic subdivisions : 1. The Eskimos. 2. The Atha- 
pascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. The Chahta-Mus- 
kokee tribes. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The Mayas. 
8. The Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Caribs and Tupis. 
11. The Araucanians. — General course of migrations. — Age of man 
in America. — Unity of type in the red race . . . . .1 



CHAPTER II. 

THE IDEA OF GOD. 

An intuition common to the species. — Words expressing it in Ameri- 
can languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of 
life manifested by breath. — Examples. — No conscious monotheism, 
and but little idea of immateriality discoverable. — Still less any 
moral dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad 
Spirit being alike terms and notions of foreign importation . . 45 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE SACEED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. 

PAGE 

The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to 
their symbolism. — Derived from the Cardinal Points. — Appears 
constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths. — The Cardinal 
Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four 
ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering 
the terrestrial Paradise. — Associations grouped around each Car- 
dinal Point. — From the number four was derived the symbolic 
value of the number Forty and the Sign of the Cross . . .68 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



Relations of man to the lower animals. — Two of these, the Bird and 
the Serpent, chosen as symbols beyond all others.— The Bird 
throughout America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds. — Mean- 
ing of certain species. — The symbolic meaning of the Serpent de- 
rived from its mode of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its 
power of charming. — Usually the symbol of the lightning and the 
Waters. — The Rattlesnake the symbolic species in America. — The 
war charm.— The Cross of Palenque.— The god of riches.— Both 
symbols devoid of moral significance 103 



CHAPTER V. 



THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER-STORM, AND 
THE RELIGION OF SEX. 



Water the oldest element.— Its use in purification.— Holy water— The 
Rite of Baptism. — The water of life. — Its symbols.— The Vase. — 
The moon. — The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but 
also of sickness, night, and pain.— Often represented by a dog. — 
Fire worship under the form of Sun worship.— The perpetual fire. — 
The new fire.— Burning the dead.— The worship of the passions. 
— The religion of sex in America.— Synthesis of the worship of 
Fire, Water, and the Winds in the Thunder-storm, personified as 
Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, Contici, Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other 
deities, many of them triune • 



CONTENTS. 



vii 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

PAGE 

Analysis of American culture myths. — The Manibozho or Michabo 
of the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of Light, a hero 
of the Dawn, and their highest deity. — The myths of Ioskeha of 
-the Iroquois, Viracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the 
Toltecs, essentially the same as that of Michabo. — Other exam- 
ples. — Ante-Columbian prophecies of the advent of a white race 
from the east as conquerors.— Rise of later culture myths under 
similar forms 172 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE EPOCHS OF 
NATURE, AND THE LAST DAY. 

Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the Spirit on the 
Waters. — Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiches, Mixtecs, 
Iroquois, Algonkins, and others. — The Flood-Myth an uncon- 
scious attempt to reconcile a creation in time with the eternity of 
matter. — Proof of this from American mythology.— Characteristics 
of American Flood-Myths. — The person saved usually the first 
man. — The number seven.— Their Ararats.— The role of birds. — 
The confusion of tongues. — The Aztec, Quiche, Algonkin, Tupi, 
and earliest Sanscrit flood-myths.— The belief in Epochs of Nature 
a further result of this attempt at reconciliation. — Its forms among 
Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs. — The expectation of the End of the 
World a corollary of this belief. — Views of various nations . . 208 

CHAPTER VIII. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 

Usually man is the Earth-born, both in language and myths.— Il- 
lustrations from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, Iroquois, 
Quichuas, Aztecs, and others.— The under-world. — Man the pro- 
duct of one of the primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the Water, 
in the myths of the Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and others.— 
Never literally derived from an inferior species .... 238 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IX, 

THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 

PAGE. 

Universality of the belief in a sonl and a future state shown by the 
aboriginal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral rites. 
— The future world never a place of rewards and punishments.— 
The house of the Sun the heaven of the red man. - The terrestrial 
paradise and the under-world. — Cupay. — Xibalba. — Mictlan. — Me- 
tempsychosis? — Belief in a resurrection of the dead almost uni- 
versal . . 249 

CHAPTER X . 

THE NATIVE PEIESTHOOD. 

Their titles. — Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural means. 
— Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of the 
clairvoyant and mesmeric faculties. — Examples. — Epidemic hys- 
teria. — The social position.— Their duties as religious functiona- 
ries. — Terms of admission to the Priesthood.— Inner organization 
in various nations. — Their esoteric language and secret societies . 282 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE INFLUENCE OP THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE MOKAL 
AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PACE. 

Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of Good. — 
Distinctions to be drawn. — Morality not derived from religion. — 
The positive side of natural religions in incarnations of divinity. — 
Examples. — Prayers as indices of religious progress. — Religion and 
social advancement.— Conclusion 306 



THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WOKLD. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

Natural religions the unaided attempts of man to find out God, modified 
by peculiarities of race and nation. — The peculiarities of the red race : 
1. Its languages unfriendly to abstract ideas. Native modes of writing 
by means of pictures, symbols, objects, and phonetic signs. These 
various methods compared in their influence on the intellectual facul- 
ties. 2. Its isolation, unique in the history of the world. S. Beyond 
all others, a hunting race.— Principal linguistic subdivisions : 1. The 
Eskimos. 2. The Athapascas. 3. The Algonkins and Iroquois. 4. 
The Chahta-Muskokees. 5. The Dakotas. 6. The Aztecs. 7. The 
Mayas. 8. The Muyscas. 9. The Quichuas. 10. The Carfbs and 
Tupis. 11. The Araucanians. — General course of migrations. — Age of 
man in America. — Unity of Type in the red race. 



HEN Paul, at the request of the populace of 



T T Athens, explained to them his views on divine 
things, he asserted, among other startling novelties, 
that " God has made of one blood all nations of the 
earth, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they 
might feel after him and find him, though he is not 
far from every one of Us." 

Here was an orator advocating the unity of the 
human species, affirming that the chief end of man is 
to develop an innate idea of God, and that all relig- 
ions except the one he preached, were examples of 




1 



2 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



more or less unsuccessful attempts to do so. Xo 
wonder the Athenians, who acknowledged no kin- 
ship to barbarians, who looked dubiously at the doc- 
trine of innate ideas, and were divided in opinion as 
to whether their mythology was a shrewd device of 
legislators to keep the populace in subjection, a veil- 
ed natural philosophy, or the celestial reflex of their 
own history, mocked at such a babbler and went 
their ways. The generations of philosophers that 
followed them partook of their doubts and approved 
their opinions, quite down to our own times. But 
now, after weighing the question maturely, we are 
compelled to admit that the Apostle was not so wide 
of the mark after all— that, in fact, the latest and 
best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support 
his position and may almost be said to paraphrase his 
words. For according to a writer who ranks second 
to none in the science of ethnology, the severest and 
most recent investigations show that in all that Ave 
can suppose to constitute specific unity, the human 
race is one, and that 44 this opinion is attended with 
fewer discrepancies, and has greater inner consis- 
tency than the opposite one of specific diversity/' 1 
While as to the religions of heathendom, the view 
of Saint Paul is but expressed with a more poetic 
turn bv a distinguished living author when he calls 
them 44 not fables, but truths, though clothed in a 
garb woven by. fancy, wherein the web is the notion 
of God, the ideal of reason in the soul of man, the 
thought of the Infinite.'' 2 

o 

1 TTaitz, Antitropologle der Naturuoelker, i. p. 256. 

2 Carriere. Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturent icicle- 
lung, i. p. 66. 



ABORIGINAL RELIGIONS OF AMERICA. 3 



Inspiration and science unite therefore to Lid us 
dismiss, as effete, the prejudice that natural religions 
either arise as the ancient philosophies taught, or that 
they are, as the Dark Ages imagined, subtle nets 0/ 
the devil spread to catch human souls. They are rather 
the unaided attempts of man to find out God ; they 
are the efforts of the reason struggling to define the 
unknown, they are the expressions of that " yearn- 
ing after- the gods " which the earliest of poets dis- 
cerned in the hearts of all men. Studied in this 
sense they are rich in teachings. Would we estimate 
the intellectual and aesthetic culture of a people, 
would we generalize the laws of progress, would we 
appreciate the sublimity of Christianity, and read the 
seals of its authenticity: the natural conceptions of 
divinity reveal them. No mythologies are so crude, 
therefore, none so barbarous, but deserve the attention 
of the philosophic mind, for they are never the empty 
fictions of an idle fancy, but rather the utterances, 
x owever inarticulate, of an intuition of reason. 

These considerations embolden me to approach 
with some confidence even the aboriginal religions 
of America, so often stigmatized as incoherent feti- 
chisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beau- 
tiful creations. The task bristles with difficulties. 
Carelessness, prepossessions, and ignorance have dis- 
figured them with false colors and foreign additions 
without number. The first maxim, therefore, must 
be to sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject 
whatever betrays the plastic hand of the European. 
For the religions developed by the red race, not those 
mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be 
the subjects of our study. Then will remain the for- 



4 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OX THE RED RACE. 



midable undertaking of reducing the authentic mate- 
rials thus obtained to system and order, and this not 
by any preconceived theory of what they ought* to 
conform to, but learning from them the very laws of 
religious growth they illustrate. The historian traces 
the birth of arts, science, and government to man's 
dependence on nature and his fellows for the means 
of self-preservation. Xot that man receives these en- 
dowments from without, but that the stern step- 
mother, Nature, forces him by threats and stripes to 
develop his own inherent faculties. So with religion. 
The idea of God does not, and cannot proceed from 
the external world, but, nevertheless, it finds its his- 
torical origin also in the desperate struggle for life, in 
the satisfaction of the animal wants and passions, in 
those vulgar aims and motives which possessed the 
mind of the primitive man to the exclusion of every- 
thing else. 

There Is an ever present embarrassment in such in- 
quiries. In dealing with these matters beyond the 
cognizance of the senses, the mind is forced to express 
its meaning in terms transferred from s-ensuous per- 
ceptions, or under symbols borrowed from the ma- 
terial world. These transfers must be understood, 
these symbols explained, before the real meaning of 
a mvth can be reached. He who fails to QTiess the 
riddle of the sphynx, need not hope to gain admit- 
tance to the shrine. With delicate ear the faint 
whispers of thought must be apprehended which 
prompt the intellect when it names the immaterial 
from the material ; when it chooses from the infinity 
of visible forms those meet to shadow forth Divinity. 

Two lights will guide us on this venturesome path. 



THE MEANING OF MYTHS. 



5 



Mindful of the watchword of inductive science, to 
proceed from the known to the unknown, the inquiry 
will be put whether the aboriginal languages of 
America employ the same tropes to express such ideas 
as deity, spirit, and soul, as our own and kindred 
tongues. If the answer prove affirmative, then not 
only have we gained a firm foothold whence to sur- 
vey the whole edifice of their mythology ; but from 
it we may draw evidence of the unity of our species 
far weightier than any unity of anatomy, evidence 
of the oneness of emotion and thought. True, the 
science of American linguistics is still in its infancy, 
and a proper handling of the materials it even now 
offers involves a more critical acquaintance with its 
innumerable dialects than I possess; but though the 
gleaning be sparse, it is enough that I break the 
ground. Secondly, religious rites are unconscious 
commentaries on religious beliefs. Some are devices 
to cajole the gods, while others represent their sup- 
posed actions. The Indian rain-maker mounts to the 
roof of his hut, and rattling vigorously a dry gourd 
containing pebbles, to represent the thunder, scatters 
water through a reed on the ground beneath, as he 
imagines up above in the clouds do the spirits of the 
storm. Every spring in ancient Delphi was repeated 
in scenic ceremony the combat of Apollo and the 
Dragon, the victory of the lord of bright summer 
over the demon of chilling winter. Thus do forms 
and ceremonies reveal the meaning of mythology, and 
the origin of its fables. 

Let it not be objected that this proposed method of 
analysis assumes that religions begin and develop 
under the operation of inflexible laws. The soul is 



6 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



shackled by no such fatalism. Formative influences 
there are, deep seated, far reaching, escaped by few, 
'but like those which of yore, astrologers imputed to the 
stars, they do but potently incline, they do not coerce. 

Language, pursuits, habits, geographical position, 
and those subtle mental traits which make up the 
characters of races and nations, all tend to deflect 
from a given standard the religious life of the indi 
vidual and the mass. It is essential to give these due 
weight, and a necessary preface, therefore, to an analy- 
sis of the myths of the red race is an enumeration of* 
its peculiarities, and of its chief families as they were 
located when first known to the historian. 

Of all such modifying circumstances none has 
greater importance than the means of expressing and 
transmitting intellectual action. The spoken and the 
written language of a nation reveal to us its prevail- 
ing, and to a certain degree its unavoidable mode of 
thought. Here the red race offers a striking phe- 
nomenon. There is no other trait that binds together 
its scattered clans, and brands them as members of- 
one family, so unmistakably as this of language. 
From the Frozen Ocean to the Land of Fire, without 
a single exception, the native dialects, though vary- 
ing infinitely in words, are marked by a peculi- 
arity in construction which is found nowhere else 
on the globe. 1 and which is so foreign to the genius of 
our tongue that it is no easy matter to explain it. It 
is called by philologists the poly synthetic construction. 

1 It is said indeed that the Yebus, a people on the west coast 
of Africa, speak a polysynthetic language, and per contra, that 
the Otomis of Mexico have a monosyllabic one like the Chinese. 



THE NATIVE LANGUAGES. 



7 



What it is will best appear by comparison. Every 
grammatical sentence conveys one leading idea with 
its modifications and relations. Now a Chinese 
would express these latter by unconnected syllables, 
the precise bearing of which could only be guessed by 
their position ; a Greek or a German would use inde- 
pendent words, indicating their relations by termina- 
tions meaningless in themselves ; an Englishman 
gains the same end chiefly by the use of particles 
and by position. Very different from all these is the 
spirit of a.polysynthetic language. It seeks" to unite 
in the .most intimate manner all relations and modifica- 
tions with the leading idea, to merge one in the other 
by altering the forms of the words themselves and 
welding them together, to express the whole in one 
word, and to banish any conception except as it arises 
in relation to others. Thus in many American tongues 
there is, in fact, no word for father, mother, brother, 
but only for my, your, his father, etc. This has ad- 
vantages and defects. It offers marvellous facilities 
for defining the perceptions of the senses with accu- 

Max Mueller goes further, and asserts that what is called the pro- 
cess of agglutination in the Turanian languages is the same as 
what has been named polysyn thesis in America. This is not to 
be conceded. In the former the root is unchangeable, the forma- 
tive elements follow it, and prefixes are not used ; in the latter 
prefixes are common, and the formative elements are blended 
with the root, both undergoing changes of structure. Very im- 
portant differences. Mr. J. H. Trumbull, in saying that the rad- 
icals of American languages " enter into composition without 
undergoing change of form " (Trans. Am. Philol. Soc, 1869-70, 
p. 66), certainly goes too far ; when the root contains more than 
one phonetic element it changes par vole d'intro-susccptinn 
(See Jugement errone sur les Langues Sauvages, 2d Ed., p. 31). 



8 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



racy ; but regarding everything in the concrete, it is 
unfriendly to the nobler labors of the mind, to abstrac- 
tion and generalization. In the numberless changes 
of these languages, their bewildering flexibility, their 
variable forms, and their rapid deterioration, they 
seem to betray a lack of individuality, and to resemble 
the vague and tumultuous history of the tribes who 
employ them. They exhibit an almost incredible 
laxity. It is nothing uncommon for the two sexes 
to use different names for the same object, and for 
nobles and vulgar, priests and people, the old and 
the young, nay, even the married and single, to 
observe what seem to the European ear quite different 
modes of expression. Families and whole villages 
suddenly drop words and manufacture others in their 
places out of mere caprice or superstition, and a few 
years' separation suffices to produce a marked dialectic 
difference. 1 In their copious forms and facility of 
reproduction they remind one of those anomalous 
animals, in whom, when a limb is lopped, it rapidly 
grows again, or even if cut in pieces each part will 
enter on a separate life quite unconcerned about his 
fellows. But as the naturalist is far from regarding 
this superabundant vitality as a characteristic of a 
high type, so the philologist justly assigns these 
tongues a low position in the linguistic scale. Fidelity 
to form, here as everywhere, is the test of superiority. 
At the outset, we divine there can be nothing very 

i In a review of the first edition of this work Professor Stein- 
thal, of Berlin, questions this statement. Mr. J. H. Trumbull 
expresses a modified belief in it {Trans. Am. Philol. Soc, 1869- 
70, p. 61). After careful consideration 1 leave it unaltered, as 
I am still persuaded the picture is not overdrawn. 



PICTURE WRITING. 



0 



subtle in the mythologies of nations with such 
languages. Much there must be that will be obscure, 
much that is vague, an exhausting variety in repeti- 
tion, and a strong tendency to lose the idea in the 
symbol. 

What definiteness of outline might be preserved 
must depend on the care with which the old stories 
of the gods were passed from one person and one 
generation to another. The fundamental myths of 
a race have a surprising tenacity of life. How many 
centuries had elapsed between the period the Ger- 
manic hordes left their ancient homes in Central 
Asia, and when Tacitus listened to their wild songs 
on the banks of the Rhine ? Yet we know that 
throuo-h those unnumbered asres of barbarism and aim- 

0 o 

less roving, these songs, " their only sort of history 
or annals," says the historian, had preserved intact 
the story of Mannus, the Sanscrit Manu, and his three 
sons, and of the great god Tuisco, the Indian Dyu. 1 
So much the more do all means invented by the red 
race to record and transmit thought, merit our care- 
ful attention. Few and feeble they seem to us, 
mainly shifts to aid the memory. Of some such, per- 
haps, not a single tribe was destitute. The tattoo 
marks on the warrior's breast, his string of grisly 
scalps, the bear's claws around his neck, were not 
only trophies of his prowess, but records of his ex- 
ploits, and to the contemplative mind contain the ru- 
diments of the beneficent art of letters. Did he 
draw in rude outline on his skin tent figures of men 
transfixed with arrows as many as he had slain en- 

1 Grimm, Geszliiclite der Deutsclien Sprachc, p. 571. 



10 GENERAL COXSIDERATIOXS OX THE RED RACE. 

emies, his education was rapidly advancing. He had 
mastered the elements of picture writing, beyond 
which hardly the wisest of his race progressed. Fig- 
ures of the natural objects connected by symbols 
having fixed meanings make up the whole of this art. 
The relative frequency of the latter marks its advance- 
ment from a merely figurative to an ideographic no- 
tation. On what principle of mental association a 
given sign was adopted to express a certain idea, why, 
for instance, on the Chipeway scrolls a circle means 
spirits, and a horned snake life, it is often hard to 
guess. The difficulty grows when we find that to the 
initiated the same sign calls up quite different ideas, 
as the subject of the writer varies from war to love, 
or from the chase to religion. The connection is gen- 
erally beyond the power of divination, and the key to 
ideographic writing once lost can never be recovered. 

The number of such arbitrary characters in the 
Chipeway notation is said to be over two hundred, 
but if the distinction between a figure and a symbol 
were rigidly applied, it would be much reduced. 
This kind of writing, if it deserves the name, was 
common throughout the continent, and many spec- 
imens of it, scratched on the plane surfaces of stones, 
have been preserved to the present day. Such is the 
once celebrated inscription on Dighton Rock, Massa- 
chusetts, long supposed to be a record of the North- 
men ofVineland; such those that mark the faces of 
the cliffs which overhang the waters of the Orinoco, 
and those which in Oregon, Peru, and La Plata have 
been the subject of much curious speculation. They 
are the mute epitaphs of vanished generations. 

I would it could be said that in favorable contrast 



PHONETIC CHARACTERS. 11 

to our ignorance of these inscriptions is our compre- 
hension of the highly wrought pictography of the 
Aztecs. No nation ever reduced it more to a system. 
It was inconstant use in the daily transactions of life. 
They manufactured for writing purposes a thick, 
coarse paper from the leaves of the agave plant, by a 
process of maceration and pressure. An Aztec book 
closely resembles one of our quarto volumes. It is 
made of a single sheet, twelve to fifteen inches wide, 
and often sixty or seventy feet long, and is not rolled, 
but folded either in squares or zigzags in such a man- 
ner that on opening it there are two pages exposed to 
view. Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of 
the outer leaves, so that the whole presents as neat an 
appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had come 
from the shop of a skilful bookbinder. They also 
covered buildings, tapestries, and scrolls of parchment 
with these devices, and for trifling transactions were 
familiar with the use of slates of soft stone, from which 
the figures could readily be erased with water. 1 
What is still more astonishing, there is reason to be- 
lieve, in some instances, their figures were not painted, 
but actually printed with movable blocks of wood, on 
which the symbols were carved in relief, though this 
was probably confined to those intended for ornament 
only. 

In these records we discern something higher than 
a mere symbolic notation. They contain the germ of 
a phonetic alphabet, and represent sounds of spoken 
language. The symbol is often not connected with 
the idea but with the word. The mode in which this 



Peter Martyr, De Insulis nuper Repertis, p. 354 ; Colon. 1574. 



12 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

is done corresponds precisely to that of the rebus. It 
is a simple method, readily suggesting itself. In the 
middle ages it was much in vogue in Europe for the 
same purpose for which it was chiefly employed in 
Mexico at the same time — the writing of proper names. 
For example, the English family Bolton was known 
in heraldry by a tun transfixed by a bolt. Precisely 
so the Mexican emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned in the 
Aztec manuscripts under the figure of a serpent coatl, 
pierced by obsidian knives iztli, and Moquauhzoma 
by a mouse-trap montlu an eagle quaulitli a lancet zo, 
and a hand maitl. As a syllable could be expressed 
by any object whose name commenced with it, as few 
words can be given the form of a rebus without some 
change, as the figures sometimes represent their full 
phonetic value, sometimes only that of their initial 
sound, and as universally the attention of the artist 
was directed less to the sound than to the idea, the 
didactic painting of the Mexicans, whatever it might 
have been to them, is a sealed book to us, and must 
remain so in great part. Moreover, it is entirely un- 
determined whether it should be read from the first 
to the last page, or vice versa, whether from right to 
left or from left to right, from bottom to top or from 
top to bottom, around the edges of the page toward 
the centre, or each line in the opposite direction from 
the preceding one. There are good authorities for all 
these methods, 1 and they may all be correct, for there 
is no evidence that any fixed rule had been laid down 
in this respect. 



i Tliev m:ivb2 found in Waitz, An'.hrop. der Naturvoelker, iv. 
p. 173. * 



DESTRUCTION OF AZTEC MANUSCRIPTS. 13 



Immense masses of such documents were stored in 
the imperial archives of ancient Mexico. Torquemada 
asserts that five cities alone yielded to the Spanish 
governor on one requisition no less than sixteen 
thousand volumes or scrolls ! Every leaf was de- 
stroyed. Indeed, so thorough and wholesale was the 
destruction of these memorials, now so precious in 
our eyes, that hardly enough remain to whet the 
wits of antiquaries. In the libraries of Paris, Dres- 
den, Pesth, and the Vatican are, however, a suffi- 
cient number to make us despair of deciphering 
them had we for comparison all which the Spaniards 
destroyed. 

Beyond all others the Mayas, resident on the pen- 
insula of Yucatan, would seem to. have approached 
nearest a true phonetic system. They had a regular 
and well understood alphabet of twenty-seven ele- 
mentary sounds, the letters of which are totally dif- 
ferent from those of any other nation, and evidently 
original with themselves. But besides these they 
used a large number of purely conventional symbols, 
and moreover were accustomed constantly to employ 
the ancient pictographic method in addition, as a sort 
of commentary on the sound represented. What is 
more curious, if the obscure explanation of an ancient 
writer can be depended upon, they not only aimed 
to employ an alphabet after the manner of ours, but 
to express the sound absolutely as our phonographic 
signs do. 1 With the aid of this alphabet, which has 

1 The only authority is Diego de Landa, Relacion de las Cosas 
de Yucatan, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 318. The explanation 
is extremely obscure in the original. I have given it in the only 



14 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



fortunately been preserved, we are enabled to spell 
out a few words on the Yucatecan manuscripts and 
facades, but thus far with no positive results. The 
loss of the ancient pronunciation is especially in the 
way of such studies. 

In South America, also, there is said to have been 
a nation who cultivated the art of picture writing, 
the Panos, on the river Ucayale. A missionary, 
Narcisso Gilbar by name, once penetrated, with great 
toil, to one of their villages. As he approached he 
beheld a venerable man seated under the shade of a 
palm-tree, with a great book open before him from 
which he was reading to an attentive circle of audi- 
tors the wars and wanderings of their forefathers. 
With difficulty the priest got a sight of the precious 
volume, and found it covered with figures and signs 
in marvellous symmetry and order. 1 No wonder 
such a romantic scene left a deep impression on his 
memory. 

The Peruvians adopted a totally different and 
unique system of records, that by means of the quijiu. 
This was a base cord, the thickness of the finger, of 
any required length, to which were attached numerous 

sense in which the author's words seem to have any meaning'. 
A useful Bibliographic PaUocjraphique Americaine maybe found 
in the Archives Paleographique de V Orient et de PArne'rique, 
1869. M. H. de Charencey has attempted several translations 
of the Palenque inscriptions and the Manuscrit Troano. A few 
years ago I reproduced the Maya alphabet in a pamphlet on 
" The ancient Phonetic Alphabet of Yucatan." A remarkable 
study of its pictorial derivation is given in Dr. Harrison Allen's 
work, The Life Form in Art. Phila. 1875. 
1 Humboldt, Vues des Cordillhes, p. 72. 



PERUVIAN SYSTEM OF RECORDS. 



15 



small strings of different colors, lengths, and textures, 
variously knotted and twisted one with another. 
Each of these peculiarities represented a certain 
number, a quality, quantity, or other idea, but what, 
not the most fluent quipu reader could tell unless he 
was acquainted with the general topic treated of. 
Therefore, whenever news was sent in this manner, a 
person accompanied the bearer to serve as verbal 
commentator, and to prevent confusion the quipus 
relating to the various departments of knowledge 
were placed in separate storehouses, one for war, an- 
other for taxes, a third for history, and so forth. On 
what principle of mnemotechnics the ideas were con- 
nected with the knots and colors we are very much 
in the dark ; it has even been doubted whether they 
had any application beyond the art of numeration. 1 
Each combination had, however, a fixed ideographic 
value in a certain branch of knowledge, and thus the 
quipu differed essentially from the Catholic rosary, 
the Jewish phylactery, or the knotted strings of the 
natives of North America and Siberia, to all of which 
it has at times been compared. 

The wampum used by the tribes of the north At- 
lantic coast was, in many respects, analogous to the 
quipu. In early times it was composed chiefly of 
wood and shells of equal size but different colors. 
These were hung on strings which were woven into 
belts and bands, the hues, shapes, sizes, and combina- 
tions of the strings hinting their general significance. 
Thus the lighter shades were invariable harbingers 

1 Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conquke Espagnole, p. 122: 
Paris, 1858. 



16 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



of peaceful or pleasant tidings, while the darker por- 
tended war and danger. The designs and figures 
had definite meanings, recognized over wide areas. 

Besides these, various simpler mnemonic aids were 
employed, such as parcels of reeds of different lengths, 
notched sticks, knots in cords, strings of pebbles or 
fruit-stones, circular pieces of wood, "small wheels," 1 
or slabs pierced with different figures which the Eng- 
lish liken to " cony holes," and at a victory, a treaty, 
or the founding of a village, sometimes a pillar or heap 
of stones was erected equalling in number the persons 
present at the occasion, or the number of the fallen. 

This exhausts the list. All other methods of wri- 
ting, the hieroglyphs of the Micmacs of Acadia, the 
syllabic alphabet of the Cherokee-s, the pretended 
traces of Greek, Hebrew, and Celtiberic letters which 
have from time to time been brought to the notice of 
the public, have been without exception the products 
of foreign civilization or simple frauds. Not a single 
coin, inscription, or memorial of any kind whatever, 
has been found on the American continent showing 
the existence, either generally or locally, of any other 
means of writing than those speoified. 

Poor as these substitutes for a developed phonetic 
system seem to us, they were of great value to the 
uncultivated man. In his legends their introduction 
is usually ascribed to some heaven-sent benefactor, 
the antique characters were jealously adhered to, and 
the pictured scroll of bark, the quipu ball, the belt 
of wampum, were treasured with provident care, and 

1 Reported of the Oenocks, an Algonkin tribe, by J. Lederer, 
Discoveries, p. 4. 



VALUE OF THE NATIVE RECORDS. 



17 



their import minutely expounded to the most intelli- 
gent of the rising generation. In all communities 
beyond the stage of barbarism, a class of persons was 
set apart for this duty and no other. Thus, for ex- 
ample, in ancient Peru, one college of priests styled 
amauta, learned, had exclusive charge over the quipus 
containing the mythological and historical traditions ; 
a second, the haravecs, singers, devoted themselves to 
those referring to the national ballads and dramas ; 
while a third occupied their time solely with those 
pertaining to civil affairs. Such custodians preserved 
and prepared the archives, learned by heart with 
their aid what their fathers knew, and in some coun- 
tries, as, for instance, among the Panos mentioned 
above, and the Quiches of Guatemala, 1 repeated por- 
tions of them at times to the assembled populace. It 
has even been averred by one of their converted 
chiefs, long a missionary to his fellows, that the Chipe- 
ways of Lake Superior have a college composed of 
ten " of the wisest and most venerable of their na- 
tion," who have in charge the pictured records con- 
taining the ancient history of their tribe. These are 
kept in an underground chamber, and are disinterred 
every fifteen years by the assembled guardians, that 
they may be repaired, and their contents explained 
to new members of the society. 2 Mr. Horatio Hale 
tells me that the Iroquois preserve a similar institu- 
tion to keep up the interpretation of their wampum 
belts. 

1 An instance is given by Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de 
Guatemala, r>. 186: Vienna, 1856. 

2 George Copway, Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation, 
p. 130: London, 1850. 

2 



18 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



In spite of these precautions, the end seems to have 
been very imperfectly attained. The most distin- 
guished characters, the weightiest events in national 
history faded into oblivion after a few generations. 
The time and circumstances of the formation of the 
league of the Five Nations, the dispersion of the 
mound builders of the Ohio valley in the fifteenth 
century, the chronicles of Peru or Mexico beyond a 
century or two anterior to the conquest, are preserved 
in such a vague and contradictory manner that they 
have slight value as history. Their mythology fared 
somewhat better, for not only was it kept fresh in 
the memory by frequent repetition ; but being itself 
founded in nature, it was constantly nourished by the 
truths which gave it birth. Nevertheless, we may 
profit by the warning to remember that their myths are 
myths only, and not the reflections of history or 
heToes. 

Rising from these details to a general comparison 
of the symbolic and phonetic systems in their reac- 
tions on the mind, the most obvious are their con- 
trasted effects on the faculty of memory. Letters 
represent elementary sounds, which are few in any 
language, while symbols stand for ideas, and they are 
numerically infinite. The transmission of knowledge 
by means of the latter is consequently attended with 
most disproportionate labor. It is almost as if we 
could quote nothing from an author unless we could 
recollect his exact words. We have a right to look 
for excellent memories where such a mode is in vogue, 
and in the present instance we are not disappointed. 
"These savages," exclaims La Honlan, "have the 
happiest memories in the world! " It was etiquette 



EFFECT OF SYMBOLIC WRITING ON THE MIND. 19 



at their councils for each speaker to repeat verbatim 
all his predecessors had said, and the whites were 
often astonished and confused at the verbal fidelity 
with which the natives recalled the transactions of 
long past treaties. Their songs were inexhaustible. 
An instance is on record where an Indian sang two 
hundred on various subjects. 1 Such a fact reminds 
us of a beautiful expression of the elder Humboldt : 
44 Man," he says, 44 regarded as an animal, belongs to 
one of the singing species ; but his notes are always 
associated with ideas." The youth who were edu- 
cated at the public schools of ancient Mexico — for 
that realm, so far from neglecting the cause of popu- 
lar education, established houses for gratuitous in- 
struction, and to a certain extent made the attend- 
ance upon them obligatory — learned by rote, long 
orations, poems, and prayers with a facility astonish- 
ing to the conquerors, and surpassing anything they 
were accustomed to see in the universities of Old 
Spain. A phonetic s} 7 stem actually weakens the re- 
tentive powers of the mind by offering a more facile 
plan for preserving thought. 44 Ce que je mets sur 
papier, je remets de ma me moire" is an expression of 
old Montaigne which he could never have used had 
he employed ideographic characters. 

Memory, however, is of far less importance than 
a free activity of thought, untrammelled by forms or 
precedents, and ever alert to novel combinations of 
ideas. Give a race this and it will guide it to civil- 
ization as surely as the needle directs the ship to its 
haven. It is here that ideographic writing reveals 



1 Morse, Report on the Indian Tribes, App. p. 352. 



20 GENERAL COXSIDERATIOXS OX THE RED RACE. 



its fatal inferiority. It is forever specifying, mater- 
ializing, dealing in minutiae. In the Egyptian sym- 
bolic alphabet there is a figure for a virgin, another 
for a married woman, for a widow without offspring, 
for a widow with one child, two children, and I 
know not in how many other circumstances, but for 
woman there is no sign. It must be so in the nature 
of things, for the symbol represents the object as it 
appears or is fancied to appear, and not as it is 
thought. Furthermore, the constant learning by 
heart infallibly leads to heedless repetition and 
mental servility. 

A symbol when understood is independent of sound, 
and is as universally current as an Arabic numeral. 
But this divorce of spoken and written language is of 
questionable advantage. It at once destroys all per- 
manent improvement in a tongue through elegance 
of style, sonorous periods, or delicacy of expression, 
and the life of the lano-ua^e itself is weakened when 
its forms are left to fluctuate uncontrolled. Written 
poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all are impossible to the 
student who draws his knowledge from such a source. 

Finally, it has been justly observed by the young- 
er Humboldt that the painful fidelity to the antique 
figures transmitted from barbarous to polished gen- 
erations is injurious to the aesthetic sense, and dulls 
the mind to the beautiful in art and nature. 

The transmission of thought by figures and sym- 
bols would, on the whole, therefore, foster those 
narrow and material tendencies which the genius of 
polysynthetic languages seems calculated to produce. 
Its one redeeming trait of strength enino- the memory 
will serve to explain the strange tenacity with which 



NOTABLE TRAITS. 



21 



certain myths have been preserved through widely 
dispersed families, as we shall hereafter see. 

Besides this of language there are two traits in the 
history of the red man without parallel in that of any 
other variety of our species which has achieved an)- 
notable progress in civilization. 

The one is his isolation. Cut off time out of mind 
from the rest of the world, he never underwent those 
crossings of blood and culture which so modified and 
on the whole promoted the growth of the Old World 
nationalities. In his own way he worked out his 
own destiny, and what he won was his with a more 
than ordinary right of ownership. . For all those 
old dreams of the advent of the Ten Lost Tribes, of 
Buddhist priests, of Northern sea kings, of Welsh 
princes, or of Phenician merchants on American soil, 
and there exerting a permanent influence, have been 
consigned to the dust-bin by every unbiased student, 
and when we see learned men essa}dng to resuscitate 
them, we regretfully look upon it in the light of a 
literary anachronism. The most competent observers 
are agreed that American art, whatever similarities 
may be found in it to that of the Old World, bears 
an undoubted stamp of indigenous growth. 1 

The second trait is the entire absence of the herds- 
man's life with its softening associations. Through- 
out the continent there is not a single authentic in- 
stance of a pastoral tribe, not one of an animal raised 
for its milk, 2 but ofne for the transportation of per- 

1 See Karl Scherzer, Die Rumen von Quirugud, p. 11 ; Squier, 
The Primeval Monuments of Peru, p. 16. 

2 Gomara states that De Ayllon found tribes on the Atlantic 



22 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



sons, and very few for their flesh. It was essentially 
a hunting race. The most civilized nations looked 
to the chase for their chief supply of meat, and the 
courts of Cuzco and Mexico enacted stringent game 
and forest laws, and at certain periods the whole pop- 
ulation turned out for a general crusade against the 
denizens of the forest. In the most densely settled 
districts the conquerors found vast stretches of prim- 
itive woods. 

If we consider the life of a hunter, pitting his skill 
and strength against the marvellous instincts and quick 
perceptions of the brute, training his senses to preter- 
natural acuteness, but blunting his more tender feel- 
ings, his sole aim to shed blood and take life, depend- 
ent on luck for his food, exposed to deprivations, 
storms, and long wanderings, his chief diet flesh, we 
may more readily comprehend that conspicuous dis- 
regard of human suffering, those sanguinary rites, that 
vindictive spirit, that inappeasable restlessness, which 
we so often find in the chronicles of ancient America. 
The old English law objected to accepting a butcher 
as a juror on a trial for life ; here is a whole race of 
butchers. 

The one softening element was agriculture. On 
the altar of Mixcoatl, god of hunting, the Aztec priest 
tore the heart from the human victim and smeared 
with the spouting blood the snake that coiled its 
lengths around the idol ; flowers and fruits, yellow 
ears of maize and clusters of rich bananas decked the 

shore not far from Cape Hatteras, keeping flocks of deer (ciervos) 
and from their milk making cheese {Hist, de las Indias, cap. 
43). I give no credence to this statement. 



MODES OF SUBSISTENCE. 23 

shrine of Centeotl, beneficent patroness of agriculture, 
and bloodless offerings alone were her appropriate 
dues. This shows how clear, even to the native 
mind, was the contrast between these two modes of 
subsistence. By substituting a sedentary for a wan- 
dering life, by supplying a fixed dependence for an 
uncertain contingency, and by admonishing man that 
in preservation, not in destruction, lies his most re- 
munerative sphere of activity, we can hardly estimate 
too highly the wide distribution of the zea mays. 
This was their only cereal, and it was found in culti- 
vation from the southern extremity of Chili to the 
fiftieth parallel of north latitude, beyond which limits 
the low temperature renders it an uncertain crop. In 
their legends it is represented as the gift of the Grea,t 
Spirit (Chipeways), brought from the terrestrial 
Paradise by the sacred animals (Quiches), and sym- 
bolically the mother of the race (Nahuas), and the 
material from which was moulded the first of men 
(Quiches). 

As the races, so the great families of man who 
speaks dialects of the same tongue are, in a sense, 
individuals, bearing each its own physiognomy. When 
the whites first heard the uncouth gutturals of the 
Indians, they frequently proclaimed that hundreds 
of radically diverse languages, invented, it was pi- 
ously suggested, by the Devil for the annoyance of 
missionaries, prevailed over the continent. Earnest 
students of such matters — Vater, Diiponcean,Gallatin 
and Buschmann — have, however, demonstrated that 
nine-tenths of the area of America, at its discovery, 
was controlled by tribes using dialects traceable to 
ten or a dozen primitive stems. The names of these, 



24 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



their geographical position in the sixteenth century, 
and, so far as it is safe to do so, their individual char- 
acter, I shall briefly mention. 

Fringing the shores of the Northern Ocean from 
Mount St. Elias on the west to the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence on the east, rarely seen a hundred miles from 
the coast, were the Eskimos. 1 They are the connect- 
ing link between the races of the Old and New 
Worlds, in physical appearance and mental traits 
more allied to the former, but in language betraying 
their nearer kinship to the latter. An amphibious 
race, born fishermen, in their buoyant skin kayaks 
they fearlessly meet the tempests, make long voyages, 
and merit the sobriquet bestowed upon them by Yon 
Baer, u the Phenicians of the north.''' Contrary to 
what one might suppose, they are, amid their snows, a 
contented, light-hearted people, knowing no longing 
for a sunnier clime, given to song, music, and merry 
tales. They are cunning handicraftsmen to a degree, 
but withal, wholly ingulfed in a sensuous existence. 

1 The name Eskimo is from the Algonkin word EsHmanticJc, 
eaters of raw flesh. There is reason to believe that at one time 
they possessed the Atlantic coast considerably to the south. 
The Xorthmen, in the year 1000, found tlie natives of Vinland, 
probably near Rhode Island, of the same race as they were 
familiar with in Labrador. They contemptuously call them 
Skral'Mf/ar, chips, and describe them as numerous and short of 
stature (Eric Hothens Saga, in Mueller, Sacjcenu.'bliotJielc, p. 214). 
Tt is curious that the traditions of the Tuscaroras, who placed 
their arrival on the Virginian coast about 1300, spoke of the 
race they found there (called Tacci or Dogi) as eaters of raw 
flesh and ignorant of maize (Lederer, Account of North America, 
in Harris, Voyages). 



THE ATHAPASCAN STOCK. 



35 



The desperate struggle for life engrosses them, and 
their mythology is barren. 

South of them, extending in a broad band across 
the continent from Hudson Bay to the Pacific, and 
almost to the Great Lakes below, is the Athapascan 
stock. Its affiliated tribes rove far north to the 
mouth of the Mackenzie River, and wandering still 
more widely in an opposite direction along both de- 
clivities of the Rocky Mountains, people portions of 
the coast of Oregon south of the mouth of the 
Columbia, and spreading over the plains of New 
Mexico, under the names of Apaches, Navajos, and 
Lipans, almost reach the tropics at the delta of the 
Rio Grande del Norte, and on the shores of the Gulf 
of California. No wonder the} 7- deserted their father- 
land and forgot it altogether, for it is a very terra 
damnata, whose wretched inhabitants are cut off alike 
from the harvest of the sea and the harvest of the 
soil. The profitable culture of maize does not ex- 
tend beyond the fiftieth parallel of latitude, and less 
than seven degrees farther north the mean annual 
temperature everywhere east of the mountains sinks 
below the freezing point. 1 Agriculture is impossible, 
and the only chance for life lies in the uncertain for- 
tunes of the chase and the penurious gifts of an arctic 
flora. The denizens of these wilds are abject, slovenly, 
hopelessly savage, " at the bottom of the scale of 
humanity in North Am erica, 1 ' says Dr. Richardson, 
and their relatives who have wandered to the more 
genial climes of the south are as savage as they, as 
perversely hostile to a sedentary life, as gross and 



i Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 374. 



26 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



narrow in their moral notions. This wide-spread 
stock, scattered over forty-five degrees of latitude, 
covering thousands of square leagues, reaching from 
the Arctic Ocean to the confines of the ancient empire 
of the Montezumas, presents in all its subdivisions 
the same mental physiognomy and linguistic peculi- 
arities. 1 

Best known to us of all the Indians are the Al- 
gonkins and Iroquois, peoples of wholly diverse de- 
scent and language, who, at the time of the discovery, 
were the sole possessors of the region now embraced 
by Canada and the eastern United States north of the 
thirty-fifth parallel. The latter, under the names of 
the Five Nations, Hurons, Tuscaroras, Susquehan- 
nocks, Nottoways and others, occupied much of the 
soil from the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario to the 
Roanoke, and perhaps the Cherokees, whose homes 
were in the secluded vales of East Tennessee, were one 
of their early offshoots. 2 They were a race of warriors, 

1 The late Professor TV. W. Turner of Washington, and Pro- 
fessor Buschmann of Berlin, are the two scholars who have 
traced the boundaries of this widely dispersed family. The 
name is drawn from Lake Athapasca in British America. Mr. 
Bancroft gives a long list of their sub-tribes. Native Races of 
the Pacific States, III., p. 563. 

2 The Cherokee tongue has a limited number of words in com- 
mon with the Iroquois, and its structural similarity is close. The 
name is of unknown origin. It should doubtless be spelled Tsa- 
iakie, a plural form, almost the same as that of the river Tellico, 
properly Tsaliko (Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, p. 87), on the 
banks of which their principal towns were situated. Adair's 
derivation from cheera, fire, is worthless, as no such word exists 
in their language. 



THE ALGONKTNS AND IROQUOIS. 



27 



courageous, cruel, unimaginative, but of rare political 
sagacity. They are more like ancient Romans than 
Indians, and are leading figures in the colonial wars. 

The Algonkins surrounded them on every side, oc- 
cupying the rest of the region mentioned, and running 
westward to the base of the Rocky Mountains, where 
one of their famous bands, the Blackfeet, still hunts 
over the valley of the Saskatchewan. They were 
more genial than the Iroquois, of milder manners 
and more vivid fancy, and were regarded by these 
with a curious mixture of respect and contempt. 
Some writer has connected this difference with their 
preference for the open prairie country in contrast 
to the endless and sombre forests where were the 
homes of the Iroquois. Their history abounds in 
great men, whose ambitious plans were foiled by the 
levity of their allies and their want of persistence. 
They it was who under King Philip fought the Pu- 
ritan fathers ; who at the instigation of Pontiac 
doomed to death every white trespasser on their soil ; 
who,led by Tecumseh and Black Hawk, gathered the 
clans of the forest and mountain for the last pitched 
battle of the races in the Mississippi valley. To them 
belonged the mild mannered Lenni Lenape, who little 
foreboded the hand of iron that grasped their own so 
softly under the elm-tree of Shackamaxon; to them 
the restless Shawnee, the gypsy of the wilderness; the 
Chipeways of Lake Superior; and also to them the 
Indian girl Pocahontas, who in the legend averted 
from the head of the white man the blow which, re- 
bounding, swept away her father and all his tribe. 1 

1 The term Algonkin may be a corruption of agomeegurin, 



28 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



Between their southernmost outposts and the Gulf 
of Mexico were a number of clans, mostly speaking 
dialects of the Chahta-Muskokee tongue, including 
the Ckoctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks or Muskokees, 
the isatchez of Louisiana, and the Apalaches and 
Seminoles of Florida. Their common legend states 
that long ago they entered this district from the 
west, and destroyed or allied themselves with its 
earlier occupants. The Uchees and Tirmuquas be- 
longed to these. At the discovery, the Chahta- 
Muskokee dialects stretched from the mountains to 
the Florida keys, and from the Atlantic to the Missis- 
sippi. But no trace of the tongue existed on the 
Bahamas or Antilles. 1 

North of the Arkansas River on the right bank of 

people of the other shore. Algic, often used synonymously, is 
an adjective manufactured by Mr. Schoolcraft "from the words 
Alleghany and Atlantic " (Algic Researches, ii. p. 12). There 
is no occasion to accept it, as there is no objection to employ- 
ing Algonkin both as substantive and adjective. Iroquois is a 
French compound of the native words hiro, I have said, and 
kou£, an interjection of assent or applause, terms constantly 
heard in their councils. 

1 Since the first edition of this work appeared I have given 
considerable attention to this interesting family. The results 
are contained in several papers published by the American 
Philosophical Society, under the titles : Contributions to a Gram- 
mar of the Muskokee Language, and On the Language of the 
Natchez; in my edition of Byington's Grammar of the Choctaiv : 
and in The National Legend of the Chahta-Muskokee Tribes, 
1870. The views in regard to the relationship of the Natchez 
and Mayas, expressed in the former edition, have not been 
confirmed by the accessions to the vocabularies of that tribe 
which I have since obtained from one of its last representa- 
tives. 



THE DAKOTAS. 



29 



the Mississippi, quite to its source, 'stretching over to 
Lake Michigan at Green Bay, and up the valley of 
the Missouri west to the mountains, resided the Da- 
kolas, an erratic folk, averse to agriculture, but dar- 
ing hunters and bold warriors, tall and strong of 
body. 1 Their religious notions have been carefully 
studied, and as they are remarkably primitive and 
transparent, they will often be referred to. The 
Sioux and the Winnebagoes are well-known branches 
of this family, and by some strange chance, one frag- 
ment of it, the Tuteloes, was found east of the Al- 
leghanies, in Virginia. 

We have seen that Dr. Richardson assigned to a 
portion of the Athapascas the lowest place among 
North American tribes, but there are some in New 
Mexico who might contest the sad distinction, the 
Root Diggers, Comanches and others, members of 
the Snake or Shoshonee family, scattered extensively 
northwest of Mexico. It has been said of a part of 
these that they are " nearer the brutes than probably 
any other portion of the human race on the face of 
the globe." 2 Their habits in some respects are more 
brutish than those of any brute, for there is no limit 
to man's moral descent or ascent, and the observer 
might well be excused for doubting whether such a 
stock ever had a history in the past, or the possibility 
of one in the future. Yet these debased creatures 
speak a dialect with faint traces of a noble kinship, 
and partake in some measure of the same blood as 
the famous Aztec race, who founded the empire of Ana- 

1 Dakota, a native word, means friends or allies. 

2 Eep. of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1854, p. 209. 



80 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



huac, and raised architectural monuments rivalling 
the most famous structures of the ancient world. 
This great family, whose language has been traced 
from Nicaragua to Vancouver's Island, and whose bold 
intellects colored much of the civilization of the 
northern continent, was composed in that division of it 
found in New Spain chiefly of two bands, the Toltecs, 
whose traditions point to the mountain ranges of 
Guatemala as their ancient seat, and the Nahuas, who 
claim to have come at a later period from the north- 
west coast, and together settled in and near the val 
ley of Mexico. 1 Outlying colonies on the shore of 

1 According to Professor Buschmann, Aztec is probably from 
iztac, white, and Xahuatlacatl signifies those who speak the lan- 
guage Nahuatl, clear sounding, sonorous. The Abbe Brasseur 
(de Bourbourg) , on the other hand, derives the latter from the 
Quiche nawal, intelligent, and adds the amazing information 
that this is identical with the English know all ! ! (Hist, de 
Mexique, etc., i. p. 102). For in his theory several languages 
of Central America are derived from the same old Indo-Ger- 
manic stock as the English, German, and cognate tongues. Tol- 
tec, from Toltecatl, means inhabitant of Tollan, which latter 
may be from tolin, rush, and signify the place of rushes. The 
signification artificer, often assigned to Toltecatl, is of later 
date, and was derived from the famed artistic skill of this early 
folk (Buschmann, Aztek. Ortsnamen, p. 682 : Berlin, 1852). 
The Toltecs are usually spoken of as anterior to the Eahuas, 
but the Tlascaltecs and natives of Cholollan or Cholula were in 
fact Toltecs, unless we assign to this latter name a merely myth- 
ical signification. The early migrations of the two Aztec 
bands and their relationship, it may be said in passing, are as 
yet extremely obscure. The Shoshonees when first known dwelt 
as far north as the head waters of the Missouri, and in the 
country now occupied by the Black Feet. Their language, which 
includes that of the Comanche, Wihinasht, Utah, and kindred 



THE AZTECS AND MA YAS. 31 

Lake Nicaragua and in the mountains of Vera Paz 
rose to a civilization that rivalled that of the Mon- 
tezumas, while others remained in utter barbarism in 
the far north. 

The Aztecs not only conquered a Maya colony, 
and founded the empire of the Quiches in Central 
America, a complete body of whose mythology has 
been brought to light in late years, but seem to have 
made a marked imprint on the Mayas themselves. 
These possessed, as has already been said, the penin- 
sula of Yucatan. One of their colonies was the Hu- 
astecas,who lived on the river Panuco. Their lan- 
guage is radically distinct from that of the Aztecs, but 
their calendar and a portion of their mythology are 
common property. They seem an ancient race, of 
mild manners and considerable polish. No Ameri- 
can nation offers a more promising field for study. 
Their stone temples still bear testimony to their un- 
common skill in the arts. A trustworthy tradition 
dates the close of the golden age of Yucatan a cen- 
tury anterior to its discovery by Europeans. Pre- 
viously it had been one kingdom, under one ruler, and 
prolonged peace had fostered the growth of the fine 
arts; but when their capital Mayapan fell, internal 
dissensions ruined most of their cities. 

No connection whatever has been shown between 
the civilization of North and South America. In the 
latter continent it was confined to two totally foreign 

bands, was first shown to have man y and marked affinities with 
that of the Aztscs by Professor Bnschmann in his great work, 
Ueber die Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im nordlichen Mexico 
and hoheren Amerikanischea Noi'den, p. 648 : Berlin, 1854. 



32 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

tribes, the Muyscas, whose empire, called that of the 
Zacs, was in the neighborhood of Bogota, and the 
Peruvians, who were divided into two primary divis- 
ions, the one the Quichnas, including the closely re- 
lated Incas and Aymaras, possessing the Andean re- 
gion, and the Yuncas of the coast. The former were 
the dominant tribe, and their sway extended from the 
second parallel of north latitude to the twentieth 
south, embracing a territory about fifteen hundred 
miles in length by four hundred in width. Lake 
Titicaca seems to have been the cradle of their civil- 
ization, offering another example how inland seas and 
well-watered plains favor the change from a hunting 
to an agricultural life. 

These four nations, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the 
Muyscas and the Peruvians, developed spontaneously 
and independently under the laws of human progress 
what civilization was found among the red race. They 
owed nothing to Asiatic or European teachers. The 
Incas it was long supposed spoke a language of their 
own, and this has been thought evidence of foreign ex- 
traction ; but Wilhelm von Humboldt has shown con- 
clusively that it was but a dialect of the common 
tongue of their country. 1 

1 His opinion was founded on an analysis of fifteen words of 
the secret language of the Incas preserved in the Royal Commen- 
taries of Garcilasso de la Vega. On examination, they all 
proved to be modified forms from the lengua general (Meyen, 
Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 6). The Quichuas of Peru 
must not be confounded with the Quiches of Guatemala. 
Quiche is the name of a place, and means " many trees ; " the 
word Quichua may signify "twisted straw." Muyscas means 
" men." This nation also called themselves Chibchas. On the 
ancient geography of Peru, the best article is that of Clement 
B. Markhain, Jour, of the Royal Geog. Soc. , 1871. 



THE CAR1BS. 



33 



When Columbus first touched the island of Cuba, 
he was regaled with horrible stories of one-eyed 
monsters who dwelt on the other islands, but 
plundered indiscriminately on every hand. These 
turned out to be the notorious Caribs, whose other 
name, Cannibals, has descended as a common noun to 
our language, expressive of one of their inhuman 
practices. These warlike sea-robbers extended their ■ 
plundering voyages to Cuba and Haiti, even to Hon- 
duras and Yucatan, but pointed for their home to the 
mainland of South America. This they possessed 
along the whole northern shore, inland at least as far 
as the south bank of the Amazon, and west nearly to 
the Cordilleras. They won renown as bold fighters, 
daring navigators and skilled craftsmen. Yet the 
evidence of language is conclusive that they were 
not remotely related to their victims, the mild and 
unambitious natives whom Columbus found on the 
Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti. These in turn were 
without doubt a branch of the Arawacks who to this 
day dwell in British and Dutch Guiana ; and they 
again are an offshoot of the great Tupi-Guaranay 
stem, which scattered its tribes over the vast region 
between the Amazon and the Pampas. 1 

Our information of the natives of the Pampas, 
Patagonia, and the Land of Fire, is too vague to per- 

1 The significance of Carib is probably warrior. It may be 
the same word as Guarani, which also has this meaning. Tupi 
or Tupa is the name given the thunder, and should be under- 
stood mythically. On the affiliations of the various tribes 
mentioned in the text I would refer the reader to my essay, 
The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnologi- 
cal Relations. Phila., 1871. 

3 



34 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



mit their positive identification with the Araucanians 
* of Chili ; but there is much to render the view plau- 
sible. Certain physical peculiarities, a common un- 
conquerable love of freedom, and a delight in war, 
bring them together, and at the same time place 
them both in strong contrast to their northern neigh- 
bors. 1 

There are many tribes whose affinities remain to 
be decided, especially on the Pacific coast. The lack 
of inland water communication, the difficult nature 
of the soil, and perhaps the greater antiquity of the 
population there, seem to have isolated and split up 
beyond recognition the indigenous families on that 
shore of the continent ; while the great river systems 
and broad plains of the Atlantic slope facilitated 
migration and intercommunication, and thus pre- 
served national distinctions over thousands of square 
leagues. 

These natural features of the continent, compared 
with the actual distribution of languages, are our 
only guides in forming an opinion as to the migra- 
tions of these various families in ancient times. Their 
traditions, take even the most cultivated, are confused, 
contradictory, and in great part manifestly fabulous. 
To construct from them by means of daring combina- 
tions and forced interpretations a connected account 
of the race during the centuries preceding Columbus, 
were with the aid of a vivid fancy an easy matter, but 

1 The Araucanians probably obtained their name from two 
Quicnua words, ari auccan, yes ! they fight ; an idiom very ex- 
pressive of their warlike character. They had had long and 
terrible wars with the Incas before the arrival of Pizarro. 



CO URSE OF MIGRA T10NS. 



35 



would be quite unworthy the name of history. The 
most that can be said with certainty is that the gen- 
eral course of migrations in both Americas was from 
the high latitudes toward the tropics, and from the 
great western cl ain of mountains toward the east. 
No reasonable doubt exists but that the Athapascas, 
Algonkins, Iroquois, Chahta-Muskokees and Aztecs 
all migrated from the north and west to the regions 
they occupied. In South America, curiously enough, 
the direction is reversed. The widespread Tupi- 
Guaranay stem, and the Quichuas seem to have wan- 
dered forth from the steppes and valleys at the head 
waters of the Rio de la Plata toward the Gulf of 
Mexico, where they came in collision with that other 
wave of migration surging down from high northern 
latitudes. For the banks of the river Paraguay and 
the steppes of the Bolivian Cordilleras are the earliest 
traditional homes of both Tupis and Quichuas. 

These movements took place not in large bodies 
under the stimulus of a settled purpose, but step by 
step, family by family, as the older hunting-grounds 
became too thickly peopled. This fact hints unmis- 
takably at the gray antiquity of the race. It were 
idle even to guess how great this must be, but it is 
possible to set limits to it in both directions. On the 
one hand, not a tittle of evidence is on record to cany 
the age of man in America beyond the present geo- 
logical epoch. Dr. Lund examined in Brazil more 
than eight hundred caverns, out of which number 
only six contained human bones, and of these six only 
one had with the human bones those of animals now 
extinct. Even in that instance the original stratifica- 
tion had been disturbed, and probably the bones had 



36 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 

been interred there. 1 The same is true of the caves 
of California, Kentucky and Tennessee. This is 
strong negative evidence. So in every other example 
where an unbiased and competent geologist has made 
the examination, the alleged discoveries of human 
remains in the older strata have proved erroneous. 

The cranial forms of the American aborigines have 
by some been supposed to present anomalies distin- 
guishing their race from all others, and even its chi ef 
families from one another. This, too, falls to the 
ground before a rigid analysis. The last word of 
craniology, which at one time promised to revolu- 
tionize ethnology and even history, is that no one 
form of the skull ispeculiar to the natives of the New 
World ; that in the same linguistic family one glides 
into another by imperceptible degrees ; and that 
there is as much diversity among them in this respect 
as among the races of the Old Continent. 2 Peculi- 
arities of structure, though they may pass as general 
truths, offer no firm foundation whereon to construct 
a scientific ethnology. Anatomy shows nothing 
unique in the Indian, nothing demanding for its de- 
velopment any special antiquity, still less an original 
diversity of type. 

On the other hand, the remains of primeval art and 
the inrpress he made upon nature bespeak for man a 
residence in the. New World coeval with the most 
distant events of history. By remains of art 1 do 

1 Comptes Rendus, vol. xxi., p. 1368 sqq. 

2 The best authorities on craniology accord in the views ex- 
pressed in the text, and in the rejection of those advocated by 
Dr. S. G. Morton in the Crania Americana, 



AGE OF MAN IN AMERICA. 



not so much refer to those desolate palaces which 
crumble forgotten in the gloom of tropical woods, 
nor even the enormous earthworks of the Mississippi 
valley covered with the mould of generations of 
forest trees, but rather to the humbler and less de- 
ceptive relics of his kitchens and his hunts. On the 
Atlantic coast one often sees the refuse of Indian vil- 
lages, where generation after generation have passed 
their summers in fishing, and left the bones, shells, 
and charcoal as their only epitaph. How many such 
summers would it require for one or two hundred 
people thus gradually to accumulate a mound of offal 
eight or ten feet high and a hundred yards across, as 
is common enough? How many generations to heap 
up that ak the mouth of the Altamaha River, exam- 
ined and pronounced exclusively of this origin by Sir 
Charles Lyell, 1 which is about this height, and covers 
ten acres of ground? Those who, like myself, have 
tramped over many a ploughed field in search of 
arrow-heads must have sometimes been amazed, at 
the numbers which are sown over the face of our 
country, betokening a most prolonged possession of 
the soil by their makers. For a hunting population is 
always sparse, and the collector finds only those 
arrow-heads which lie upon the surface. Even a de- 
gree of civilization is most ancient ; for the evidences 
are abundant that the mines of California and Lake 
Superior were worked by tribes using metals at a 
most remote epoch. 

Still more forcibly does nature herself bear wit- 
ness to this antiquity of possession. Botanists de- 



1 Second Visit to the United States, i. p. 252. 



33 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS OX THE RED RACE. 



clare that a very lengthy' course of cultivation ia 
required so to alter the form of a plant that it can no 
longer be identified with the wild species ; and still 
more protracted must be the artificial propagation for 
it to lose its power of independent life, and to rely 
wholly on man to preserve it from extinction. Now 
this is precisely the condition of the maize, tobacco, 
cotton, quinoa. and mandioca plants, and of that 
species of palm called by botanists the Gulielma 
speeiosa ; all have been cultivated from immemorial 
time by the aborigines of America, and, except cot- 
ton, by no other race : all no longer are to be identi- 
fied with any known wild species ; several are sure 
to perish unless fostered by human care. 1 What 
numberless ages does this suggest ? How nianv cen- 
turies elapsed ere man thought of cultivating Indian 
corn ? How many more ere it had spread over nearly 
a hundred degrees of latitude, and lost all semblance 
to its original form ? Who has the temerity to an- 
swer these questions ? The judicious thinker will 
perceive in them satisfactory reasons for dropping 
once for all the vexed inquiry, 4 * how America was 
peopled." and will smile at its imaginary solutions, 
whether they suggest Jews, Japanese, or, as the latest 
theory is, Egyptians. 

While these and other considerations testify forci- 
bly to that isolation I have already mentioned, they 
are almost equally positive for an extensive inter- 

1 Martins, Yon dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnem 
Brasiliens. p. SO : Muenchen, 1832 : republished in his Bei- 
trage zur Ethnographic und Sprachenkunde America's : Leipzig, 
1837; see also Lucien de Rosny, Le Tdbac et ses Acces- 
soii'es pamii les Indigenes deVAmerique. Paris, 1863. 



THE RACE AS A UNIT. 



39 



course in very distant ages between the great families 
of the race, and for a prevalent unity of mental type, 
or perhaps they hint at a still visible oneness of de- 
scent. In their stage of culture, the maize, cotton, 
and tobacco could hardly have spread so widely by 
commerce alone. Then there are verbal similarities 
running through wide families of languages which, 
in the words of Professor Buschmann, are "calcu- 
lated to fill us with bewildering amazement," 1 some 
of which will hereafter be pointed out ; and lastly, 
passing to the psychological constitution of the race, 
we may quote the words of a sharp-sighted naturalist, 
whose monograph on one of its tribes is unsurpassed 
for profound reflections : " Not only do all the primi- 
tive inhabitants of America stand on one scale of re- 
lated culture, but that mental condition of all in 
which humanity chiefly mirrors itself, to wit, their 
religious and moral consciousness, this source of all 
other inner and outer conditions, is one with all, 
however diverse the natural influences under which 
they live." 2 

Penetrated with the truth of these views, all arti- 
ficial divisions into tropical or temperate, civilized 
or barbarous, will in the present work, so far as pos- 
sible, be avoided, and the race will be studied as a 
unit, its religion as the development of ideas common 
to all its members, and its myths as the garb thrown 

1 Athapaskisclie SpracTistamm, p. 164: Berlin, 1856. Mr. 
Bancroft {Native Races, III., p. 559), who cites two instances 
in point, is apparently unaware that Prof. Buschmann had 
already noticed the same ones. 

2 Martins, Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwolinern 
Brasiliens, p. 77. 



40 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



around these ideas by imaginations more or less fer- 
tile, but seeking everywhere to embody the same 
notions. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.- 

As the subject of American mythology is a new one to most 
readers, and as in its discussion everything depends oti a careful 
selection of authorities, it is well at the outset to review very 
briefly what has already been written upon it, and to assign the 
relative amount of weight that in the following pages will be 
given to the works most frequently quoted. The conclusions I 
hare arrived at are so different from those who have previously- 
touched upon the topic that such a step seems doubly advisable. 

The first who undertook a philosophical survey of American 
religions was Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, in 1S19 (A Discourse 
on the Religion of the. Indian Tribes of Xorth America, Collec- 
tions of the New York Historical Society, vol., iii., New York, 
1821). He confined himself to the tribes north of Mexico, a 
difficult portion of the field, and at that time not very well 
known. The notion of a state of primitive civilization prevent- 
ed Dr. Jarvis from forming any correct estimate of the native 
religions, as it led him to look upon them as deteriorations from 
purer faiths instead of developments. Thus he speaks of them 
as having " departed less than among any other nation from 
the form of primeval truth," and also mentions their " wonder- 
ful uniformity " (pp. 219, 221). 

The well-known American ethnologist, Mr. E. G. Squier, 
has also published a work on the subject, of wider scope than 
its title indicates (The Serpent Symbol in America, New York, 
1851). Though written in a much more liberal spirit than the 
preceding, it is in the interests of a school of mythology now 
discredited. Thus, with a sweeping generalization, he says : 
" The religions or superstitions of the American nations, how- 
ever different they may appear to t'le superficial glance, aro 
rudimentally the same, and are only modifications of that 
primitive system which under its physical aspect has been 



WRITERS ON AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY. 



41 



denominated Sun or Fire worship" (p. 111). With this he 
combines the doctrine, that the chief topic of mythology is the 
adoration of the generative power ; and to rescue such views 
from their materializing tendencies, imagines to counterbalance 
them a clear, universal monotheism. " We claim to have 
shown," he says (p. 154), " that the grand conception of a 
Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles 
existed in America in a well-defined and clear; y recognized 
form; " and elsewhere that " the monotheistic idea stands out 
clearly in all the religions of America " (p. 151). 

The government work on the Indians (History, Conditions 
and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States) pub- 
lished at Washington, 1851-9, was unfortunate in its editor. It 
is a monument of American extravagance and superficiality. 
Mr. Schoolcraft was a man of deficient education and narrow 
prejudices, pompous in style, and inaccurate in statements. The 
information from original observers it contains is often of real 
value, but the general views on aboriginal history and religion 
are shallow. 

A German professor, Dr. J. G. Miiller, has written quite a 
voluminous work on American Primitive Religions (Gescluchte 
der Amerikanischen Ur-religionen, pp. 707 : Basel, 1855). His 
theory is that " at the south a worship of nature with the adora- 
tion of the sun as its centre, at the north a fear of spirits com- 
bined with fetichism, made up the two fundamental divisions 
of the religion of the red race " (pp. 89, 90). This imaginary 
antithesis he traces out between the Algonkin and Apalachian 
tribes, and between the Toltecs of Guatemala and the Aztecs of 
Mexico. His quotations are nearly all at second-hand, and so 
little does he criticise his facts as to confuse the Yaudoux wor- 
ship of the Haitian negroes with that of Yotan in Chiapa. 

Very much better is the Anthropology of the late Dr. Theodore 
Waitz (Anthropologic der Naturvozlker : Leipzig, 1862-66). No 
more comprehensive, sound, and critical work on the indigenes 
of America has ever been written. But on their religions the 
author is unfortunately defective, being led astray by the hasty 
and groundless generalizations of others. His great anxiety, 
moreover, to subject all moral sciences to a realistic philosophy, 
was peculiarly fatal to any correct appreciation of religious 
growth, and his views are neither new nor tenable. 



42 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE RED RACE. 



For a different reason I must condemn the late enthusiastic 
and meritorious antiquary, the Abbe E. Charles Brasseur (de 
Buurbourg), in both his interpretations of American myths, the 
first that they are history, the second that they record geology ! 

While heartily regretting the use he made of them, all inter- 
ested in American antiquity cannot too much thank this inde- 
fatigable explorer for the priceless materials he unearthed in 
the libraries of Spain and Central America, and laid before the 
public. For the present purpose the most significant of these is 
the Sacred National Book of the Quiches, a tribe of Guatemala. 
This contains their legends, written in the original tongue, and 
transcribed, by Father Francisco Ximenes, about 1725. The 
manuscripts of this missionary were used early in the present 
century, by Bon Felix Cabrera, but were supposed to be entirely 
lost even by the Abbe Brasseur himself in 1850 (Lett re d M. le 
Due de Valmy, Mexique, Oct. 15, 1850). Made aware of their 
importance by the expressions of regret used in the Abbe's 
letters, Dr. C. Scherzer, in 1854, was fortunate enough to dis- 
cover them in the library of the University of San Carlos in the 
city of Guatemala. The legends were in Quiche, with a Span- 
ish translation and scholia. The Spanish was copied by Dr. 
Scherzer and published in Vienna, in 1856, under the title Los 
Historias del 0 rig en de los Indios de Guatemala, por el R. P. F. 
Francisco Ximenes. In 1855, the Abbe Brasseur took a copy of 
the original which he brought out at Paris in 1861, with a trans- 
lation of his own, under the title Vuh Popol : Le Livre Sacre 
des Quiches et les Mythes de V Antiquite Americaine. Internal 
evidence proves that these legends were written down by a con- 
verted native some time in the seventeenth century. They 
carry the national history back about two centuries, beyond 
which all is professedly mythical. Although both translations 
are colored by the peculiar views of their makers, this is one of 
the most valuable bodies of American mythology extant. 

Another authority of inestimable value has been placed with- 
in the reach of scholars during the last few years. This is the 
Belations de la Nouvelle France, containing the annual reports 
of the Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois and Algonkins 
from and after 1611. My references to this are always to the 
reprint at Quebec, 1858. Of not less excellence for another 



WRITERS ON AMERICAN MYTHOLOG T. 43 



tribe, the Creeks, is the brief " Sketch of the Creek Country," 
by Col. Benjamin Hawkins, written about 1800, and first pub- 
lished in full by the Georgia Historical Society, in 1848. The 
recent able collation of Mr. H. H.Bancroft, "The Native 
Races of the Pacific States," contains some previously unpub- 
lished myths ; but I acknowledge a hesitation in making use of 
such late material, for fear the old stories of the gods have 
been leavened by missionary instructions. The same remark 
applies to the very careful collection of Prof. Carl Knortz, Sagen 
der Nord Amerikanischen Indianer. Most of the other works to 
which I have referred are too well known to need any special 
examination here, or will be more particularly mentioned . in 
the foot-notes when quoted. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 

A deduction of reason common to the species. — "Words expressing it in 
American languages derived either from ideas of above in space, or of 
life manifested by breath. — Examples.— Xo conscious monotheism, and 
but bttle idea of immateriality discoverable. — Still less any moral 
dualism of deities, the Great Good Spirit and the Great Bad Spirit being 
alike terms and notions of foreign importation. 

IF we accept the definition that mythology is the idea 
of God expressed in symbol, figure, and narra- 
tive, and always struggling toward a clearer utter- 
ance, it is well not only to trace this idea in its very 
earliest embodiment in language, but also, for the 
sake of comparison, to ask what is its latest and most 
approved expression. The reply to this is given us 
by Immanuel Kant. He has shown that our reason, 
dwelling on the facts of experience, constantly seeks 
the principles which connect them together, and only 
rests satisfied in the conviction that there is a highest 
and first principle which reconciles all their discre- 
pancies and binds them into one. This he calls the 
Ideal of Reason. It must be true, for it is evolved 
from the laws of reason, our only test of truth. Fur- 
thermore, the sense of personality and the voice of 
conscience, analyzed to their sources, can be explained 
only by the assumption of an infinite personality 
and an absolute standard of right. Or, if to some all 
this appears but wire-drawn, metaphysical subtlety, 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



45 



they are welcome to the definition of tne realist, that 
the idea of God is the sum of those intelligent activi- 
ties which the individual, reasoning from the analogy 
of his own actions, imagines to be behind and to 
bring about natural phenomena. If either of these 
be correct, it were hard to conceive how any tribe or 
even any sane man could be without some notion of 
divinity. 

Certainly in America no instance of its absence 
has been discovered. Obscure, grotesque, unworthy 
it often was, but everywhere man was oppressed with 
a sensus numinis, a feeling that invisible, powerful 
agencies were at work around him, who, as they 
willed, could help or hurt him. In every heart was 
an altar to the Unknown God. Not that it was cus- 
tomary to attach any idea of unity to these unseen 
powers. The supposition that in ancient times and 
in very unenlightened conditions, before mythology 
had grown, a ■ monotheism prevailed, which after- 
wards at various times was revived by reformers, is a 
belief that should have passed away when the de- 
lights of savage life and the praises of a state of 
nature ceased to be the themes of philosophers. We 
are speaking of a people little capable of abstraction. 
The exhibitions of force in nature seemed to them 
the manifestations of that mysterious power felt by 
their self-consciousness ; to combine these various 
manifestations and recognize them as the operations 
of one personality, was a step not easily taken. Yet 
He is not far from every one of us. "Whenever 
man thinks clearly, or feels deeply, he conceives God 
as self-conscious unity," says Carriere, with admirable 
insight ; and elsewhere, " We have monotheism, not 



46 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



in contrast to polytheism, not clear to the thought, 
but in living intuition in the religious sentiment." 1 

Thus it was among the Indians. Therefore a word 
is usually found in their languages analogous to none 
in any European tongue, a word comprehending all 
manifestations of the unseen world, yet conveying no 
sense of personal unity. It has been rendered spirit, 
demon, God, devil, mystery, magic, but commonly 
and rather absurdly by the English and French, 
" medicine. " In the Algonkin dialects this word 
is manito and oki, in Iroquois oki and otkon, in the 
Hidatsa hopa, the Dakota has icaJcan, the Aztec teotl, 
the Qiiichua Jiuaca, and the Maya ku. They all ex- 
press in its most general form the idea of the super- 
natural. 2 And as in this word, supernatural, Ave see 
a transfer of a conception of place, and that it liter- 
ally means that which is above the natural world, so 
in such as we can analyze of these vague and primi- 
tive terms the same trope appears discoverable. 
iVakan as an adverb means above, oki is but another 
orthography for oghee, and otkon seems allied to 
hetke?i, both of which have the same signification. 

The transfer is no mere figure of speech, but has 
its origin in the very texture of the human mind. 
The heavens, the upper regions, are in every religion 
the supposed abode of the divine. What is higher is 

1 Die Kunst un Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung, i. pp. 
50, 252. 

- On icakan see Roehrig, On the Language of the Dakota, 
Smithsonian Report, 1871 ; on manito, Trumbull, in Old and 
New, March. 1S70. The criticisms of the latter on the remark 
in the text are refuted by the consideration that to the savage 
whatever is preternatural is esteemed dirine. 



THE SKY AS GOD. 



47 



always the stronger and the nobler ; a superior is 
one who is better than we are, and therefore a chief- 
tain in Algonkin is called oghee-ma, the higher one. 
Proud, in Latin superbus, is in Dakota wakanicidapi, 
etymologically the same. There is, moreover, a naif 
and spontaneous instinct which leads man in his 
ecstasies of joy, and in his paroxysms of fear or pain, 
to lift his hands and eyes to the overhanging firma- 
ment. There the sun and bright stars sojourn, em- 
blems of glory and stability. Its azure vault has a 
mysterious attraction which invites the eye to gaze 
longer and longer into its infinite depths. 1 Its 
color brings thoughts of serenity, peace, sunshine, 
and warmth. Even the rudest hunting tribes felt 
these sentiments, and as a metaphor in their speeches, 
and as a paint expressive of friendly design, blue was 
in wide use among them. 2 

So it came to pass that the idea of God was linked 
to the heavens long ere man asked himself, are the 
heavens material and God spiritual, is He one, or is 
He many ? Numerous languages bear trace of this. 
The Latin Deus, the Greek Zeus, the Sanscrit Dyaus, 
the Chinese Tien, all originally referred to the sky 
above, and our own word heaven is often employed 
synonymously with God. There is at first no per- 
sonification in these expressions. They embrace all 

1 " As the high heavens, the far-off mountains look to us 
blue, so a blue superficies seems to recede from us. As we 
would fain pursue an attractive object that flees from us, so we 
like to gaze at the blue, not that it urges itself upon us, but 
that it draws us after it." Goethe, Farbenlehre, sees. 780, 781. 

2 Loskiel, Geschichte der Mission der Evang. Brueder, p. 63 : 
Barby, 1789. 



48 VHE IDEA OF GOD. 

unseen agencies, they are void of personality, and 
yet to the illogical, primitive man, there is nothing 
contradictory in making them the object of his 
- prayers. The Mayas had legions of gods ; " ku" says 
their historian, 1 " does not signify any particular 
god ; yet their prayers are sometimes addressed to 
kue" which is the same word in the vocative case. 

As the Latins called their united divinities Superi, 
these above, so Captain John Smith found that the 
Powhatans of Virginia employed the word oki, above, 
in the same sense, and it even had passed into a defi- 
nite personification among them in the shape of an 
" idol of wood evil-favoredly carved." In purer di- 
alects of the Algonkin it is always indefinite, as in 
the terms nipoon oki, spirit of summer, pipoon oki, 
spirit of winter. Perhaps the word was introduced 
into Iroquois by the Hurons, neighbors and associ- 
ates of the Al'gonkins. The Hurons applied it to 
that demoniac power " who rules the seasons of the 
year, who holds the winds and the waves in leash, 
who can give fortune to their undertakings, and 
relieve all their wants." 2 In another and far distant 
branch of the Iroquois, the Nottoways of southern 
Virginia, it reappears under the curious form quaker, 
doubtless a corruption of the Powhatan qui-oki, lesser 
gods. 3 The proper Iroquois name of him to whom 

i Cogolludo, Historia de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. vii. 

" Bel. de la None. France. An. 1636, p. 107. 

3 This word is found in Gallatin's vocabularies (Transactions 
of the Am. Antiq. Soc, vol. ii.),and may have partially induced 
that distinguished ethnologist to ascribe, as he does in more 
than one place, whatever notions the eastern tribes had of a 
Supreme Being to the teachings of the Quakers. 



THE SOUL AND THE BREATH. 49 

they prayed was garonMa, which again turns out on 
examination to be their common word for shy, and 
again in all probability from the verbal root gar, to 
be above. 1 The Californian tribes spoke of their 
chief deity as " The old man above." 2 In the legends 
of the Aztecs and Quiches such phrases as " Heart of 
the Sky," " Lord of the Sky," " Prince of the Azure 
Planisphere," " He above all," are of frequent occur- 
rence, and by a still bolder metaphor, the Araucan- 
ians, according to Molina, entitled their greatest god 
" The Soul of the Sky." 

This last expression leads to another train of 
thought. As the philosopher, pondering on the 
workings of self-consciousness, recognizes that vari- 
ous pathways lead up to God, so the primitive man, 
in forming his language, sometimes trod one, some- 
times another. Whatever else skeptics have ques- 
tioned, no one has yet presumed to doubt that if a 
God and a soul exist at all, they are of like essence. 
This firm belief has left its impress on language in 
the names devised to express the supernal, the spirit- 
ual world. If we seek hints from languages more 
familiar to us than the tongues of the Indians, and 
take for example this word spiritual, we find it is 
from the Latin spirare, to blow, to breathe. If in 
Latin again we look for the derivation of animus, the 
mind, anima, the soul, they point to the Greek 
anemos, wind, and aemi, to blow. In Greek the 

1 Bruyas, Radices Verborum Jroquceorum, p. 84. This work 
is in Shea's Library of American Linguistics, and is a most 
valuable contribution to philology. The same etymology is 
given by Lafitau, Mceurs des Sauuages, etc., Germ, trans., p. Go. 

2 Bancroft, Native Races, iii. 158. 

4 



50 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



words for soul or spirit, psuche, pneuma, thumos, all 
are directly from verbal roots expressing the motion 
of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew word ruah 
is translated in the Old Testament sometimes by 
wind, sometimes by spirit, sometimes by breath. The 
Egyptian Knepli is another instance in point. Etymo- 
logically, in fact, ghosts and gusts, breaths and 
breezes, the Great Spirit and the Great Wind, are 
one and the same. It is easy to guess the reason of 
this. The soul is the life, the life is the breath. In- 
visible, imponderable, quickening with vigorous 
motion, slackening in rest and sleep, passing quite 
away in death, it is the most obvious sign of life. All 
nations grasped the analogy and identified the one 
with the other. But the breath is nothing but wind. 
How easy, therefore, to look upon the wind that 
moves up and down and to and fro upon the earth, 
that carries the clouds, itself unseen, that calls forth 
the terrible tempests and the various seasons, as the 
breath, the spirit of God, as God himself ? So in the 
Mosaic record of creation,it is said " a mighty wind " 
passed over the formless sea and brought forth the 
world, and when the Almighty gave to the clay a 
living soul, he is said to have breathed into it " the 
wind of lives." 

Armed with these analogies, we turn to the primi- 
tive tongues of America, and find them there as dis- 
tinct as in the Old World. In Dakota niya is liter- 
ally breath, figuratively life ; Elliott in his Bible 
translates soul by nashanonh^ a breathing ; in Netela 
pints is life, breath, and soul ; silla, in Eskimo, means 
air, it means wind, but it is also the word that con- 
veys the highest idea of the world as a whole, and 



GOD IN THE WIND. 



51 



the reasoning faculty. The supreme existence they 
call Sillam Innua, Owner of the Air, or of the All ; 
or Sillam JVelaga, Lord of the Air or Wind. In the 
Yakama tongue of Oregon ivkrisha signifies there is 
wind, tvkrishwit, life ; with the Aztecs, ehecatl ex- 
pressed both air, life, and the soul, and personified in 
their myths it was said to have been born of the 
breath of Tezcatlipoca, their highest divinity, who 
himself is often called Yoalliehecatl, the Wind of 
Night. 1 

The descent is, indeed, almost imperceptible which 
leads to the personification of the wind as God, which 
merges this manifestation of life and power in one 
with its unseen, unknown cause. Thus it is a worthy 
epithet which the later Creeks apply to the supreme 
ruler, when they address him as Hesaketumese, Source 
of Breath ; and doubtless it was at first but a title 
of equivalent purport which the Cherokees, their 
neighbors, were wont to employ, Oonawleh unggt, 
Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete 
identification of the divine with the natural pheno- 
mena, of meteorology. This seems to have taken 
place in the same group of nations, for the original 
Choctaw word for Deity is given as Hushtoli, the 
Storm Wind. 2 The idea, indeed, was constantly 

1 My authorities are Riggs, Diet, of the Dakota, Boscana, Ac- 
count of New California, Richardson's and Egede's Eskimo 
Vocabularies, Pandosy, Gram, and Diet, of the Yakama (Shea's 
Lib. of Am. Linguistics), and the Abbe Brasseur for the Aztec. 

2 These terms are found in Gallatin's vocabularies. The last 
mentioned is not, as Adair thought, derived from issto ulla or 
ishto hoollo, strong man (properly hatak kollo), for in Choctaw 
the adjective cannot precede the noun it qualifies. Its true 
sense seems visible in the analogous Creek word hatvle, the wind. 



52 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



being lost in the symbol. In the legends of the 
Quiches, the mysterious creative power is Hueakan, 
a name of no signification in their langmasce, one 
which some have thought they brought from the 
Antilles, which finds its meaning in the ancient tongue 
of Haiti, and which, under the forms of hurricane, 
ouragan, orkan, was adopted into European marine 
languages as the native name of the terrible tornado 
of the Caribbean Sea. 1 Mixcohuatl, the Cloud Ser- 
pent, chief divinity of several tribes in ancient Mexi- 
co, is to this day the correct term in their lan- 
guage for the tropical whirlwind, and the natives of 
Panama worshipped the same phenomenon under the 
name Tuyra. 2 To kiss the air was in Peru the com- 
monest and simplest sign of adoration to the collec- 
tive divinities. 3 

1 "Webster derives hurricane from the Latin furio. But 
Oviedo tells us in his description of Hispaniola that " Hurakan, 
in lingua di questa isola vuole dire propriamente fortuna tem- 
pestuosa molto eccessiva, perche en effetto non h altro que un 
grandissimo vento e pioggia insieme." Historia delV Indie, lib- 
vi. cap. iii. The word Hurakan is puzzling in its presence in 
Yucatan. I cannot doubt it is from a Tupi root. Denis 
in his notes to the Histoire de Maragnan of the Pere Yves 
d'Evreux gives the form Hyorocan as known in or near that 
province. In the Macusi and Arekuna dialects of Guiana Hnri 
now means devil, bad spirit (SchombergJc, Beisen in Britisch 
Guiana). An in Tupi is soul, Anan the name of one of the 
Arawack gods. The Dictionariwn Galibi, Paris, 1763, gives the 
forms iroucan, youroucan, jeroucan and hyorocan. On the 
whole, I am inclined to believe the Mayas adopted the name 
from the Spaniards. 

2 Oviedo, Bel. de la Prov. de Cueba, p. 141, ed. Ternaux- 
Compans. 

3 Garcia, Origen de los Indios 7 lib. iv. cap. xxii. 



NO CONSCIOUS MONOTHEISM. 



53 



Many writers on mythology have commented on 
the prominence so frequently given to the winds. 
None have traced it to its true source. The facts of 
meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a 
solution. As if man ever did or ever could draw the 
idea of God from nature ! In the identity of wind 
with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul, of 
soul with God, lies the far deeper and far truer rea- 
son, whose insensible development I have here traced, 
in outline indeed, but confirmed by the evidence of 
language itself. 

Let none of these expressions, however, be con- 
strued to prove the distinct recognition of One Su- 
preme Being. Of monotheism either as displayed in 
the one personal definite God of the Semitic races, or 
in the dim pantheistic sense of the Brahmins, there 
was not a single instance on the American continent. 
The missionaries found no word in any of their lan- 
guages fit to interpret Deus, God. How could they 
expect it? The associations we attach to that name 
are the accumulated fruits of nigh two thousand 
years of Christianity. The phrases Good Spirit, 
Great Spirit, and similar ones, have occasioned endless 
discrepancies in the minds of travellers. In most 
instances they are entirely of modern origin, coined 
at the suggestion of missionaries, applied to the white 
man's God. Very rarely do they bring any concep- 
tion of personality to the native mind, very rarely do 
they signify any object of worship, perhaps never did 
in the olden times. The Jesuit Relations state 
positively that there was no one immaterial god rec- 
ognized by the Algonkin tribes, and that the title, 
the Great Manito, was introduced first by themselves 



54 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



in its personal sense. 1 The supreme Iroquois Deity 
Neo or Hawaneu, triumphantly adduced by many 
writers to show the monotheism underlying the native 
creeds,, and upon whose name Mr. Schoolcraft has 
built some philological reveries, turns out on closer 
scrutiny to be the result of Christian instruction, and 
the words themselves to be but corruptions of the 
French Dieu and le bon Dieu ! 2 

Innumerable mysterious forces are inactivity around 
the child of nature ; he feels within him something 
that tells him they are not of his kind, and yet not 
altogether different from him ; he sums them up 
in one word drawn from sensuous experience. Does 
he wish to express still more forcibly this sentiment, 
he doubles the word, or prefixes an adjective, or adds 
an affix, as the genius of his language may dictate. 
But it still remains to him but an unapplied abstrac- 
tion, a mere category of thought, a frame for the All. 
It is never the object of veneration or sacrifice, no 
myth brings it down to his comprehension, it is not 
installed in his temples. Man cannot escape the 
belief that behind all form is one essence ; but the 
moment he would seize and define it, it eludes his 
grasp, and by a sorcery more sadly ludicrous than 
that which blinded Titania, he worships not the Infi- 
nite he thinks, but a base idol of his own making. 

1 See the Bel de la Nouv. France pour V An 1637, p. 49. 

2 Mr. Morgan, in his excellent -work, The League of the Iro- 
quois, has been led astray by an ignorance of the etymology of 
these terms. For Schoolcraft's views see his Oneota, p. 147. 
The matter is ably discussed in the Etudes Philologiques sur 
Quelques Langues Sauvagesde VAmerique, p. 14 : Montreal, 1S66 ; 
but comp. L'hea, Diet Francais-Onontague, preface. 



NO CONSCIOUS MONOTHEISM. 



As in the Zend Avesta behind the eternal struggle 
of Ormuzd and Ahriman looms up the undisturbed 
and infinite Zeruana Akerana, as in the pages of the 
Greek poets we here and there catch glimpses of a 
Zeus who is not he throned on Olympus, nor he who 
takes part in the wrangles of the gods, but stands 
far off and alone, one yet all, " who was, who is, who 
will be," so the belief in an Unseen Spirit, who asks 
neither supplication nor sacrifice, who, as the natives 
of Texas told Joutel in 1684, " does not concern him- 
self about things here below," 1 who has no name to 
call him by, and is never a figure in mythology, was 
doubtless occasionally present to their minds. Said 
a sagamore of Newfoundland to a missionary: " There 
is one only God, one Son, one Mother and the Sun, 
which are four, but God is above all." 2 It was 
present not more but far less distinctly and often not 
at all in the more savage tribes, and no assertion can 
be more contrary to the laws of religious progress 
than that which pretends that a purer and more 
monotheistic religion exists among nations devoid of 
mythology. There are only two instances on the 
American continent where the worship of an immate- 
rial God is asserted to have been instituted, and 
these as the highest conquests of American natural 
religions deserve especial mention. 

They occurred, as we might expect, in the two 
most civilized nations, the Quichuas of Peru, and the 

1 " Qui ne prend aucun soin des choses icy bas." Jour. 
Hist. (Tun Voyage de VAme'rique, p. 225 : Paris, 1713. 

2 Blomes, State of his Majestic' 's Territories in America, p. 
241, Lond. 1687. 



r 



56 THE IDEA OF GOD. 

Nahuas of Tezcuco. It is related that about the year 
1440, at a grand religious council held at the conse- 
cration of the newly-built temple of the Sun at Cuzco, 
the Inca Yupanqui rose before the assembled multi- 
tude and spoke somewhat as follows : — 

^" Many say that the Sun is the Maker of all things. 
But he who makes should abide by what he has made. 
Now many things happen when the Sun is absent ; 
therefore he cannot be the universal creator. And 
that he is alive at all is doubtful, for his trips do not 
tire him. Were he a living thing, lie would grow 
weary like ourselves ; were he free, he would visit 
other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered 
beast who makes a daily round under the eye of a 
master ; he is like an arrow, which must go whither 
it is sent, not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, 
our Father and Master the Sun, must have a lord and 
master more powerful than himself, who constrains 
him to his daily circuit without pause or rest. " 1 

To express this greatest of all existences, a name 
was proclaimed, based upon that of the highest di- 
vinities known to the ancient Aymara clans, Illatici 
Viracocha Pachacamac, literally, the thunder vase, 
the foam of the sea, animating the world, mysterious 
and symbolic names drawn from the deepest religious 
instincts of the soul, whose hidden meanings will be 

1 In attributing this speech to the Inca Yupanqui, I have fol- 
lowed Balboa, who expressly says this was the general opinion 
of the Indians (Hist, du Perou, p. 62, ed. Ternaux-Compans). 
Others assign it to other Incas. See Garcilasso dela Vega,, Hist, 
des Incas, lib. viii. chap. 8, and Acosta, Nat. and Morall Hist, 
of the New World, chap. 5. The fact and the approximate time 
are beyond question. 



THE HERESY OF THE INC A. 



57 



unravelled hereafter. A temple was constructed in a 
vale by the sea near Callao, wherein his worship was 
to be conducted without images or human sacrifices. 
The Inca was ahead of his age, however, and when 
the Spaniards visited the temple of Pachacamac in 
1525, they found not only the walls adorned with 
hideous paintings, but an ugly idol of wood represent- 
ing a man of colossal proportions set up therein, and 
receiving the prayers of the votaries. 1 

No better success attended the attempt of ISTeza- 
huatl, lord of Tezcuco, said to have taken place about 
the same time. He had long prayed to the gods of 
his forefathers for a son to inherit his kingdom, and the 
altars had smoked vainly with the blood of slaugh- 
tered victims. At length, in indignation and despair, 
the prince exclaimed, " Verily, these gods that I am 
adoring, what are they but idols of stone without 
speech or feeling ? They could not have made the 
beauty of the heaven, the sun, the moon, and the stars 
which adorn it, and which light the earth, with its 
countless streams, its fountains and waters, its trees 
and plants, and its various inhabitants. There must 
be some god, invisible and unknown, who is the 
universal creator. He alone can console me in my 
affliction and take away my sorrow." Strengthened 
in this conviction by a timely fulfilment of his heart' s 
desire, he erected a temple nine stories high to repre- 
sent the nine heavens, which he dedicated " to the 
Unknown God, the Cause of Causes." This temple, 
he ordained, should never be polluted by blood, nor 

1 Xeres, Eel. de la Conq. du Perou, p. 151, ed. Ternaux- Corn- 
pans. 



58 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



should any graven image ever be set up within its 
precincts. 1 

In neither case, be it observed, was any attempt 
made to substitute another and purer religion for the 
popular one. The Inca continued to receive the 
homage of his subjects as a brother of the sun, and the 
regular services to that luminary were never inter- 
rupted. Nor did the prince of Tezcuco afterwards 
neglect the honors due his national gods, nor even 
refrain himself from plunging the knife into the 
breasts of captives on the altar of the god of war. 2 
They were but expressions of that monotheism which 
is ever present, "not in contrast to poly theism, but in 
living intuition in the religious sentiments." If this 
subtle but true distinction be rightly understood, it 
will excite no surprise to find such epithets as " end- 
less," "omnipotent," "invisible," "adorable," such 
appellations as "the Maker and Moulder of All," 
"the Mother and Father of Life," "the One God 
complete in perfection and unity," "the Creator of 
all that is," " the Soul of the World," in use and of 
undoubted indigenous origin not only among the 
civilized Aztecs, but even among the Haitians, the 
Araucanians, the Lenni Lenape, and others. 3 It will 

1 Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. pp. 192, 193, on the authority of 
Ixtlilxochitl. 

2 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, iii. p. 297, note. 

8 Of very many authorities that I have at hand, I shall only 
mention Heckewelder, Acc. of the Inch. p. 422; Duponceau, 
Mem. sur les Langues de VAmer. du Nord, p. 310; Peter Martyr, 
De Rebus Oceanicis, Dec. i., cap. 9; Molina, Hist of Chili, ii. p. 
75; Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, pp. 4,5; Ixtli- 
lxochitl, Rel. des Conq. du Mexique, p. 2. These terms bear the 



NAMES OF DEITY. 



59 



not seem contradictory to hear of them in a purely 
polytheistic worship ; we shall be far from regard- 
ing them as familiar to the popular mind, and we 
shall never be led so far astray as to adduce them in 
evidence of a monotheism in either technical sense of 
that word. In point of fact they were not applied to 
any particular god even in the most enlightened na- 
tions, but were terms of laudation and magniloquence 
used by the priests and devotees of every several god 
to do him honor. They prove something in regard 
to a consciousness of divinity hedging us about, but 
nothing at all in favor of a recognition of one God ; 
they exemplify how profound is the conviction of a 
highest and first principle, but they do not offer the 
least reason to surmise that this was a living reality 
in doctrine or practice. 

The confusion of these distinct ideas has led to 
much misconception of the native creeds. But another 
and more fatal error was that which distorted them 

severest scrutiny. The Aztec appellation of the Supreme Being 
Tloque ndliuaque is compounded of tloc, together, with, andna- 
huac, at, by, with, with possessive forms added, giving the sig- 
nification, Lord of all existence and coexistence (alles Mitseyns 
und alles Beiseyns, bei welchem das Seyn aller Dinge ist. Busch- 
mann, Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, p. 642). In the Quiche 
legends the Supreme Being is called Bitol, the substantive form 
of bit, to make pottery, to form, and Tzukol, substantive form of 
tzak, to build, the Creator, the Constructor. The Arowacks of 
Guyana applied the term Aluberi to their highest conception of 
a first cause, from the verbal form alin, he who makes (Martius, 
Ethnographie und SpracJienkunde Amerikd's, i. p. 696). So some 
of the Minnetarees interpret the name of their deity Itsikamahi- 
dis as " he who first made " (Matthews, Grammar of the Hidatsa t 
p. xxi. New York, 1873). 



60 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



into a chialistic form, ranging on one hand the good 
spirit with his legions of angels, on the other the 
evil one with his swarms of fiends, representing the 
world as the scene of their unending conflict, man 
as the unlucky football who gets all the blows. 
This notion, which has its historical origin among; 
the Parsees of ancient Iran, is unknown to savage 
nations. " The Hidatsa," says Dr. Matthews, " be- 
lieve neither in a hell nor in a devil." 1 "The idea 
of the Devil," justly observes Jacob Grimm, " is for- 
eign to all primitive religions." Yet Professor 
Mueller, in his voluminous work on those of Amer- 
ica, after approvingly quoting this saying, compla- 
cently proceeds to classify the deities as good or bad 
spirits ! 2 

This view, which has obtained without question in 
every work on the native religions of America, has 
arisen partly from habits of thought difficult to break, 
partly from mistranslations of native words, partly 
from the foolish axiom of the early missionaries, " The 
gods of the gentiles are devils." Yet their own writ- 
ings furnish conclusive proof that no such distinction 
existed out of their own fancies. The same word 
(oikori) which Father Bruyas employs to translate 
into Iroquois the term " devil," in the passage " the 
Devil took upon himself the figure of a serpent," he 
is obliged to use for " spirit " in the phrase, " at the 
resurrection we shall be spirits," 3 which is a rather 
amusing illustration how impossible it was by any 
native word to convey the idea of the spirit of evil. 

1 Grammar of the Hidatsa, p. xxii. 

2 Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 403. 

3 Bruyas, Had. Verb. Iroquo&orum, p. 38. 



THE IDEA OF THE DEVIL. 



61 



When in 1570, Father Rogel commenced his labors 
among £he tribes near the Savannah River, he told 
them that the deity they adored was a demon who 
loved all evil things, and they must hate him ; where- 
upon his auditors replied, that so far from this being 
the case, whom he called a wicked being was the 
power that sent them all good things, and indignantly 
left the missionary to- preach to the winds. 1 

"A passage often quoted in support of this mistaken 
view is one in Winslow's " Good News from New Eng- 
land," written in 1622. The author says that the 
Indians worship a good power called Kiehtan, and 
another " who, as farre as wee can conceive, is the 
Devill," named, Hobbamock, or Hobbamoqui. The 
former of these names is merely the word " great," 
in their dialect of Algonkin, with a final and is 
probably an abbreviation of Kittanitowit, the great 
manito, a vague term mentioned by Roger Williams 
and other early writers, introduced, Mr. Trumbull 
thinks, to express a conception received from the 
missionaries. The latter, so far from corresponding 
to the power of evil, was, according to Winslow's 
own statement, the kindly god who cured diseases, 
aided them in the chase, and appeared to them in 
dreams as their protector. Therefore, with great 
justice, Dr. Jarvis has explained it to mean " the oJce 
or tutelary deity which each Indian worships," as 
the word itself signifies. 2 

1 Alcazar, Chrono-historia de la Prov. de Toledo, Dec. iii., Ano 
viii., cap. iv. : Madrid, 1710. This rare work contains the only 
faithful copies of Father Rogel 's letters extant. Mr. Shea, in 
his History of Catholic Missions, erroneously calls him Roger. 

2 Discourse on the R, el ig ion of the Ind. Tribes of N.Am., p. 252 
in the Trans. N. Y. Hist. Soc. 



52 



TEE IDEA OF GOD. 



So in many instances it turns out that what has 
been reported to be the evil divinity of a nation, to 
whom they pray to the neglect of a better one, is in 
reality the highest power they recognize. Thus 
Juripari, worshipped by certain tribes of the Tupi- 
Guaranay stock, and said to be their wicked spirit, is 
in fact the name in their language for spiritual ex- 
istence in general : 1 and Aka-kanet, sometimes men- 
tioned as the father of evil in the mythology of the 
Araucanians, is the benign power appealed to by theii 
priests, who is throned in the Pleiades, who sends 
•fruits and flowers to the earth, and is addressed as 
" grandfather." 2 The Cupay of the Peruvians never 
was, as Prescott would have us believe, " the shadowy 
embodiment of evil," but simply and solely their god 
of the dead, the Pluto of their pantheon, correspond- 
ing to the Mictla of the Mexicans. 

The evidence on the point is indeed conclusive. 
The Jesuit missionaries very rarely distinguish be- 
tween good and evil deities when speaking of the 

1 " Giropari semble apartenir plus specialement au nord du 
Bresil," says Denis in his notes to Father d'Evreux's Histoire de 
Marignan, p. 405. He sent both pleasant and unpleasant events ; 
on the Pampas it seems to have been a common, not a proper 
name. The derivation given is jerupiar pari, the iame proud 
one (Marians, Die Indianischen Volkerschaften in Brasilia*, p. 
468). 

2 Mueller, Amer. Urreligionen, pp. 265, 272, 274. Well may 
he remark : " The dualism is not very striking among these 
tribes ; " as a few pages previous he says of the Caribs, " The 
dualism of gods is anything but rigidly observed. The good 
gods do more evil than good. Fear is the ruling religious senti- 
ment." To such a lame conclusion do these venerable pre- 
possessions lead. Grau ist alle Theorie. 



NO DUALISM IN DEITIES. 



G3 



religion of the northern tribes; and the Moravian 
Brethren among the Algonkins and Iroquois place on 
record their unanimous testimony that " the idea of 
a devil, a prince of darkness, they first received in 
later times through the Europeans." 1 So the Chero- 
kees, remarks an intelligent observer, " know nothing 
of the Evil One and his domains, except what they 
have learned from white men." 2 . The term Great 
Spirit conveys, for instance, to the Chipeway just as 
much the idea of a bad as of a good spirit ; he is 
unaware of any distinction until it is explained to 
him. 3 "I have never been able to discover from the 
Dakotas themselves," remarks the Rev. G. H. Pond, 
who had lived among them as a missionary for eigh- 
teen years, 4 " the least degree of evidence that they 
divide the gods into classes of good and evil, and am 
persuaded that those persons who represent them as 
doing so, do it inconsiderately, and because it is so 
natural to subscribe to a long cherished popular 
opinion." 

Very soon after coming in contact with the whites, 
the Indians caught the notion of a bad and good 
spirit, pitted one against the other in eternal warfare, 
and engrafted it on their ancient traditions. Writers 
anxious to discover Jewish or Christian analogies, 
forcibly construed myths to suit their pet theories, 
and for indolent observers it was convenient to cata- 

1 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der evang. Brueder, p. 46. 

2 Whipple, Report on the Ind. Tribes, p. 35 : Washington, 
1855. Pacific Railroad Docs. 

3 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, i. p. 359. 
* In Schoolcraft, Ibid., iv. p. 642. 



61 



THE IDEA OF GOD. 



logue their gods in antithetical classes. In Mexican 
and Peruvian mythology this is so plainly false that 
historians no longer insist upon it, but as a popular 
error it still holds its ground "with reference to the 
more barbarous and less known tribes. 

Perhaps no myth has been so often quoted in its 
confirmation as that of the ancient Iroquois, which 
narrates the conflict between the first two brothers 
of our race. It is of undoubted native origin, and 
venerable antiquity. The version given by the Tus- 
c aurora chief Cusic, in 1825, relates that in the begin- 
ning of things there were two brothers, Enigorio and 
Enigohahetgea, names literally meaning the Good 
Mind and the Bad Mind. 1 The former went about 
the world furnishing it with gentle streams, fertile 
plains, and plenteous fruits, while the latter ma- 
liciously followed him creating rapids, thorns, and 
deserts. At length the Good Mind turned upon his 
brother in anger, and crushed him into the earth. 
He sank out of sight in its depths, but not to perish, 
for in the dark realms of the underworld he still 
lives, receiving the souls of the dead and being 
the author of all evil. Now when we compare this 
with the version of the same legend given by Father 
Brebeuf, missionary to the Hurons in 1636, we find 
its whole complexion altered; the moral dualism 
vanishes ; the names Good Mind and Bad Mind do not 
appear ; it is the struggle of Ioskeha, the White one, 

1 Or more exactly, the Beautiful Spirit, the Ugly Spirit. In 
Onondaga the radicals are onigonra, spirit, Itio beautiful, dhetken 
u?ly. Dictionnaire Francais-Onontague\ edite par Jean-Marie 
Shea: Xew York, 1S59.' 



MISUNDERSTOOD MYTHS. 



65 



with his brother Tawiscara, the Dark one, and we at 
once perceive that Christian influence in the course of 
two centuries had given the tale a meaning foreign to 
its original intent. 

So it is with the story the Algonkins tell of their 
hero Manibozho, who, in the opinion of a well-known 
writer, " is always placed in antagonism to a great 
serpent, a spirit of evil." 1 It is to the effect that after 
conquering many animals, this famous magician tried 
his arts on the prince of serpents. After a prolonged 
struggle, which brought on the general deluge and 
the destruction of the world, he won the victory. 
The first authority we have for this narrative is even 
later than Cusic; it is Mr. Schoolcraft in our own 
day ; the legendary cause of the deluge as related 
by Father Le Jeune, in 1634, is quite dissimilar, and 
makes no mention of a serpent ; and as we shall here- 
after see, neither among the Algonkins nor any other 
Indians, was the serpent usually a type of evil, but 
quite the reverse. 2 

The comparatively late introduction of such views 
into the native legends finds a remarkable proof in 
the myths of the Quiches, which were committed to 
writing in the seventeenth century. They narrate 
the struggles between the rulers of the upper and the 
nether world, the descent of the former into Xibalba, 
the Realm of Phantoms, and their victory over its 
lords, One Death and Seven Deaths. The writer adds 

1 Squier, The Serpent Symbol in America. 

2 Both these legends will be analyzed in a subsequent chapter, 
and an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive 
form, but to explain their meaning. 

5 



66 THE IDEA OF GOD. 

of the latter, who clearly represent to his mind the 
Evil One and his adjutants, " in the old times they 
did not haye much power ; they were but annoyers 
and opposers of men, and in truth they were not re- 
garded as gods. But when they appeared it was ter- 
rible. They were of evil, they were owls, fomenting 
trouble and discord." In this passage, which, be it 
said, seems to have impressed the translators very 
differently, the writer appears to compare the great 
power assigned by the Christian religion to Satan and 
his allies, with the very much less potency attributed 
to their analogues in heathendom, the rulers of the 
world of the dead. 1 

A littile reflection will convince the most incredu- 
lous that any such dualism as has been fancied to 
exist in the native religions, could not have been of 
indigenous growth. The gods of the primitive man 
are beings of thoroughly human physiognomy, 
painted with colors furnished by intercourse with his 
fellows. These are his enemies or his friends, as he 
conciliates or insults them. ~No mere man, least of 
all a savage, is kind and benevolent in spite of neg- 
lect and injury, nor is any man causelessly and cease- 
lessly malicious. Personal, family, or national feuds 
render some more inimical than others, but always 
from a desire to guard their own interests, never out 
of a delight in evil for its own sake. Thus the 
cruel gods of death, disease, and danger, were never 
of Satanic nature, while the kindliest divinities were 

1 Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, Or, de 
los Indian de Guat., p. 76, with those of Brasseur 3 Le Livre 
Sacre des Quiches, p. 189. 



A MORAL DUALISM IMPOSSIBLE. 



67 



disposed to punish, and that severely, any neglect of 
their ceremonies. 

I must not be understood to mean that there was 
no dichotomic classification of deities. This there 
was, and Yeiy generally. Some gods favored man, 
and others hurt him ; some were his friends, others 
his foes. But what I would warn against is the 
common error of confounding this with a moral du- 
alism. This can only arise in minds where the ideas 
of good and evil are not synonymous with those of 
pleasure and pain, for the conception of a wholly 
good or a wholly evil nature requires the use of these 
terms in their higher, ethical sense. The various 
deities of the Indians, it may safely be said in con- 
clusion, present no stronger antithesis in this respect 
than those of ancient Greece and Rome. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS. 



The number Four sacred in all American religions, and the key to their 
symbolism. — Derived from the Cardinal Points. — Appears constantly 
in government, arts, rights, and myths. — The Cardinal Points identified 
with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four ancestors of the 
human race, and the four celestial rivers watering the terrestrial Para- 
dise.— Associations grouped around each Cardinal Point.— From the 
number four was derived the symbolic value of the number Forty, and 
the Sign of the Cross. 



VERY one familiar with the ancient religions of 



B J the world must have noticed the mystic power 
they attached to certain numbers, and how these 
numbers became the measures and formative quanti- 
ties, as it were, of traditions and ceremonies, and had 
a symbolical meaning nowise connected with their 
arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern 
religions, that of the Jews among the rest, seven was 
the most sacred number, and after it, four and three. 
The most cursory reader must have observed in how 
many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew 
Scriptures, occurring, in all, something over three 
hundred and sixty times, it is said. Why these num- 
bers were chosen rather than others has not been 
clearly explained. Their sacred character dates be- 
yond the earliest history, and must have been coeval 
with the first expressions of the religious sentiment. 
Only one of them, the four, has any prominence 
in the religions of the red race, but this is so marked 




THE CARDINAL POINTS. 



CO 



and so universal, that at a very early period in my 
studies I felt convinced that if the reason for its 
adoption could be discovered, much of the apparent 
confusion which reigns among them would be dis- 
pelled. 

Such a reason must take its rise from some essential 
relation of man to nature, everywhere prominent, 
everywhere the same. It is found in the adoration 
of the cardinal points. 

The red man, as I have said, was a hunter; he was 
ever wandering through pathless forests, coursing 
over boundless prairies. It seems to the white race 
not a faculty, but an instinct that guides him so un- 
erringly. He is never at a loss. Says a writer who 
has deeply studied his character : " The Indian ever 
has the points of the compass present to his mind, 
and. expresses himself accordingly in words, although 
it shall be of matters in his own house." 1 

The assumption of precisely four cardinal points is 
not of chance ; it is recognized in every language ; it 
is rendered essential by the anatomical structure of 
the body ; it is derived from the immutable laws of 
the universe. Whether we gaze at the sunset or the 
sunrise, or whether at night we look for guidance to 
the only star of the twinkling thousands that is con- 
stant to its place, the anterior and posterior planes of 
our bodies, our right hands and our left coincide with 
the parallels and meridians. Very early in his his- 
tory did man take note of these four points, and 
recognizing in them his guides through the night 
and the wilderness, call them his gods. Long after- 

1 Buckingham Smith, Gram. Notices oflhelieve Language, p. 
26 (Shea's Lib. Am. Linguistics). 



70 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



wards, when centuries of slow progress had taught 
him other secrets of nature — when he had discerned 
in the motions of the sun, the elements of matter, and 
the radicals of arithmetic a repetition of this number 
— they were ro him further warrants of its sacred- 
ness. He adopted it as a regulating quantity in his 
institutions and his arts ; he repeated it in its multi- 
ples and compounds ; he imagined for it noyel appli- 
cations ; he constantly magnified its mystic meaning ; 
and finally, in his' philosophical reveries, he called it 
the key to the secrets of the universe, " the source of 
everflowing nature." 1 

In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a 
square plain; in the legend of the Quiches it is 
" shaped as a square, divided into four parts, marked 
with lines, measured with cords, and suspended from 
the heavens by a cord to its four corners and its four 
sides." 2 The earliest divisions of territory were in 
conformity to this view. Thus it was with ancient 
Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, India and China ; 3 and 

1 I refer to the four " ultimate elementary particles " of Em- 
pedocles. The number was sacred to Hermes, and lay at the root 
of the physical philosophy of Pythagoras. The quotation in the 
text is from the " Golden Verses," given in Passow's lexicon - 
under the 'word rerpaarvg : vat fia rov duerepa ipvxa irapadovrc re- 
rpaKrw Trayav aevaov ovaeuq. " The most sacred of all things," said 
this famous teacher, " is Number ; and next to it, that which 
gives Names ; " a truth that the lapse of three thousand years 
is just enabling us to appreciate. 

2 Ximenes, Or. de los Indies, etc., p. 5. 

3 See Sepp, Heidenlhum und dessen Bedeutung fur das Chris- 
tenthum, i. p. 464 sqq., a work full of learning, but written in 
the wildest vein of Joseph de Maistre's school of Romanizing 
mythology. 



IN ARCHITECTURE AND GOVERNMENT. 



71 



in the new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the 
Muyscas, the Quiches, and Tlascala were tetrarchies 
divided in accordance with, and in the first two in- 
stances named after, the cardinal points. So their 
chief cities — Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholu- 
la — were quartered by streets running north, south, 
east, and west. It was a necessary result of such a 
division that the chief officers of the government 
were four in number, that the inhabitants of town 
and country, that the whole social organization ac- 
quired a quadruplicate form. The official title of the 
Incas was " Lord of the four quarters of the earth," 
and the venerable formality in taking possession of 
land, both in their domain and that of the Aztecs, 
was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to huil a 
firebrand to each of the cardinal points. 1 They car- 
ried out the idea in their architecture, building their 
palaces in squares with doors opening, their tombs 
with their angles pointing, their great causeways 
running in these directions. These architectural 
principles repeat themselves all over the continent ; 
they recur in the sacred structures of Yucatan, in the 
ancient cemetery of Teo-tihuacan, near Mexico, where 
the tombs are arranged along avenues corresponding 
exactly to the parallels and meridians of the central 
tumuli of the sun and moon f and however ignorant 

1 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, ii. p. 227, Le Livre Sucre des 
Quiche's, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were 
Anti, Cunti, Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has 
been lost, but to repeat them, says La Vega, was the same as to 
use our words, east, west, north, and south (Hist, des Incas, lib. 
ii. cap. 11). 

2 Humboldt, Polit. Essay on New Spain, ii. p. 44. 



72 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



we are about the mound builders of the Mississippi 
valley, we know that they constructed their earth- 
works with a constant regard to the quarters of the 
compass. 

Nothing can be more natural than to take into con- 
sideration the regions of the heavens in the construe- 
tion of buildings ; I presume that at any time no one 
plans an edifice of pretensions without doing so. Yet 
this is one of those apparently trifling transactions 
which in their origin and applications have exerted a 
controlling influence on the history of the human 
race. 

When we reflect how indissolubly the mind of the 
primitive man is welded to his superstitions, it were 
incredible that his social life and his architecture 
could thus be as it were in subjection to one idea, 
and his rites and myths escape its sway. As one 
might expect, . it reappears in these latter more 
vividly than anywhere else. If there is one formula 
more frequently mentioned by travellers than another 
as an indispensable preliminary to all serious busi- 
ness, it is that of smoking, and the prescribed and 
traditional rule was that the first puff should be to 
the sky, and then one to each of the corners of the 
earth, or the cardinal points. 1 These were the spirits 
who made and governed the earth, and under what- 
ever difference of guise the uncultivated fancy por- 
trayed them, they were the leading figures in the 

1 This custom has been often mentioned among the Iroquois, 
Algonkins, Dakotas, Creeks, Natchez, Araucanians, and other 
tribes. Xuttalkpoints out its recurrence among the Tartars of 
Siberia also. (Travels, p. 175.) 



IN MYTH AND RITE. 



73 



tales and ceremonies of nearly every tribe of the red 
race. These were the divine powers summoned by 
the Chipeway magicians when initiating neophytes 
into the mysteries of the meda craft. They were 
asked to a lodge of four poles, to four stones that lay 
before its fire, there to remain four days, and attend 
four feasts. At every step of the proceeding this 
number or its multiples were repeated. 1 With their 
neighbors the Dakotas the number was also distinctly 
sacred ; it was intimately inwoven in all their tales 
concerning the wakan power and the spirits of the 
air, and their religious rites. The artist Catlin has 
given a vivid description of the great annual festival 
of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings forward 
with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this number 
from first to last. 2 He did not detect its origin in the 
veneration of the cardinal points, but the informa- 
tion that has since been furnished of the myths of 
this stock leaver no doubt that such was the case. 8 

Proximity of place had no part in this similarity 
of rite. In the grand commemorative festival of the 
Creeks called the Busk, which wiped out the memory 
of all crimes but murder, which reconciled the pro- 
scribed criminal to his nation and atoned for his guilt, 
when the new fire was kindled and the green corn 

1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. pp. 424 ct seq. 

2 Letters on the North American Indians, vol. i., Letter 22. 

3 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, iv. p. 643 sq. " Four is their 
sacred number," says Mr. Pond (p. 64G). Their neighbors, 
the Pawnees, though not the most remote affinity can be 
detected between their languages, coincide with them in this 
sacred number, and distinctly identified it-^th the cardinal 
points. See De Smet, Oregon Missions, pp. 300, 3G1. 



J 

74 THE SACRED NUMBER. 

• served up, every dance, every invocation, every cere- 
mony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the 
number four and its multiples in every imaginable 
relation. So it was at that solemn probation which 
the youth must undergo to prove himself worthy of 
the dignities of manhood and to ascertain his guardian 
spirit ; here again his fasts, his seclusions, his trials, 
were all laid clown in fourfold arrangement. 1 

Not alone among these barbarous tribes were the 
cardinal points thus the foundation of the most 
solemn mysteries of religion. An excellent authority 
relates that the Aztecs of Micla, in Guatemala, cele- 
brated their chief festival four times a year, and that 
four priests solemnized its rites. They commenced 
by invoking and offering incense to the shy and the 
four cardinal points ; they conducted the human 
victim four times around the temple, then tore out 
his heart, and catching the blood in four vases scat- 
tered it in the same directions. 2 So also the Peru- 
vians had four principal festivals annually, aircl at 
every new moon one of four days' duration. In fact 
the repetition of the number in all their religious 
ceremonies is so prominent that it has been a subject 
of comment by historians. They have attributed it to 
the knowledge of the solstices and equinoxes, but 

1 Benj. Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, pp. 75, 78 : 
Savannah, 1848. The description he gives of the ceremonies of 
the Creeks was transcribed word for word and published in the 
first volume of the American Antiquarian Society's Transactions 
as of the Shawnees of Ohio. This literary theft has not before 
been noticed. 

2 Palacios, Best d e l a Prov. de Guatemala, pp. 31, 32, ed. 

Tcrnai:::- Compans . 



IN CEREMONIES AND CALENDARS. 



75 



assuredly it is of more ancient elate than this. The 
same explanation has been offered for its recurrence 
among the Nahuas of Mexico, whose whole lives 
were subjected to its operation. At birth the mother 
was held unclean for four days, a fire was kindled 
and kept burning for a like length of time, at the 
baptism of the child an arrow was shot to each of the 
cardinal points. Their prayers were offered four times 
a day, the greatest festivals were every fourth year, 
and their offerings of blood were to the four points 
of the compass. At death food was placed on the 
grave, as among the Eskimos, Creeks, Dakotas and 
Algonkins, for four days (for all these nations and 
many others supposed that the journey to the land 
of souls was accomplished in that time), and mourn- 
ing for the dead was for four months or four years. 1 
It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the 
catalogue much further. Yet it is not nearly exhaust- 
ed. From tribes of both continents and all stages of 
culture, the Muyscas of Columbia and the Natchez of 
Louisiana, the Quiches of Guatemala and the Caribs 
of the Orinoko, instance after instance might be mar- 
shalled to illustrate how universally a sacred charac- 
ter was attached to this number, and how uniformly 
it is traceable to a veneration of the cardinal points 

1 All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many such 
examples. I may particularly refer to KingsborouQ-h . Antiqs. 
of Mexico, v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans' Recueil de pieces rel. 
a la Conq. du Mexique, pp. 307, 310, and Gama, Des. de las dos 
Piedras que se Jiallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico, ii. sec. 
128 (Mexico, 1832), who gives numerous instances beyond 
those I have cited, and directs with emphasis the attention of 
the reader to this constant repetition. 



73 THE SACRED NUMBER. 

It is sufficient that it be displayed in some of its more 
unusual applications. 

It is well known that the calendar common to the 
Aztecs and Mayas divides the month into four weeks, 
each containing a like number of secular days ; that 
their indiction is divided into four periods ; and that 
they believed the world had passed through four 
cycles. It has not been sufficiently emphasized that 
in many of the picture writings these days of the week 
are placed respectively north, south, east, and west, 
and that in the Maya language the quarters of the 
indiction still bear the names of the cardinal points, 
hinting the reason of their adoption. 1 This cannot 
be fortuitous. Again, the division of the year into 
four seasons — a division as devoid of foundation in 
nature as that of the ancient Aryans into three, and 
unknown among many tribes, yet obtained in very 
early times among Algonkins, Cherokees, Choctaws, 
Creeks, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians, and Araucanians. 
They were supposed to be produced by the unending 
struggles and varying fortunes of the four aerial giants 
who rule the winds. 

We must seek in mythology the key to the monot- 
onous repetition and the sanctity of this number; 
and furthermore, we must seek it in those natural 
modes of expression of the religious sentiment which 
are above the power of blood or circumstance to con- 
trol. One of these modes, we have seen, was that 
which led to the identification of the divinity with 
the wind, and this it is that solves the enigma in the 

i Albert Gallatin, Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc, ii. p. 316, from the 
Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738. 



THE FOUR WINDS. 



77 



present instance. Universally the spirits of the car- 
dinal points were imagined to be in the winds that 
blew from them. The names of these directions and 
of the corresponding winds are often the same, and when 
not, there exists an intimate connection between them. 
For example, take the languages of the Mayas, Huas- 
tecas, and Moscos of Central America ; in all of them 
the word for north is synonymous with north wind, and 
so on for the other three points of the compass.. Or 
again, that of the Dakotas, and the word tate-ouye-toba, 
translated " the four quarters of the heavens," means 
literally, " whence the four winds come." 1 It were 
not difficult to extend the list ; but illustrations are all 
that is required. Let it be remembered how closely 
the motions of the air are associated in thought and 
language with the operations of the soul and the idea 
of God ; let it further be considered what support this 
association receives from the power of the winds on 
the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and 
the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the 
tornado that levels the forest ; how they summon the 
rain to fertilize the seed and refresh the shrivelled 
leaves ; how they aid the hunter to stalk the game, 
and usher in the varying seasons ; how, indeed, in a 
hundred ways, they intimately concern his comfort 
and his life ; and it will not seem strange that they 
almost occupied the place of all other gods in the 
mind of the child of nature. Especially as those who 
gave or withheld the rains were the objects of his 
anxious solicitation. " Ye who dwell at the four 
corners of the earth — at the north, at the south, at 

1 Riggs, Gram, and Diet, of the Dakota Lang., s. v. 



f 

78 THE SACRED NUMBER 

the east, and at the west, " commenced the Aztec 
prayer to the Tlalocs, gods of the showers. 1 For 
they, as it were, hold the food, the life of man in 
their power, garnered up on high, to grant or deny, as 
they see fit. It was from them that the prophet of old 
was directed to call back the spirits' of the dead to the 
dry bones of the valley. " Prophesy unto the wind, 
prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith 
the Lord God, come forth from the four winds, O 
breath, and breathe upon these slain, that 'they may 
live." (Ezek. xxxvii. 9.) 

In the same spirit the priests of the Eskimos prayed 
to Sillam Innua, the Owner of the Winds, as the 
highest existence ; the abode of the dead they called 
Sillam Aipane, the House of the Winds ; and in their 
incantations, when they would summon a new soul to 
the sick, or order back to its home some troublesome 
spirit, their invocations were ever addressed to the 
winds from the cardinal points — to Pauna the East, 
and Sauna the West, to Kami a the South and Auna 
the North. 2 

As the rain-bringers, as the life-givers, it were no 
far-fetched metaphor to call them the fathers of our 
race. Hardly a nation on the continent but seems to 
have had some vague tradition of an origin from four 
brothers, to have at some time been led by four lead- 
ers or princes, or in some manner to have connected 
the appearance and action of four important person- 

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, in Kingsborough, v. p. 
375, 

2 Egede, Nachrichten von Grbnland, pp. 137, 173, 285. (Ko- 
penhagen, 1790.) 



THE FOUR ANCESTORS. 79 

ages with its earliest traditional history. Sometimes 
the myth defines clearly these fabled characters as the 
spirits of the winds, sometimes it clothes them in un- 
couth, grotesque metaphors, sometimes again it so 
weaves them into actual history that we are at a 
loss where to draw the line that divides fiction from 
truth. 

I shall attempt to follow step by step the growth 
of this myth from its simplest expression, where the 
transparent drapery makes no pretence to conceal its 
true meaning, through the ever more elaborate narra- 
tives, the more strongly marked personifications of 
more cultivated nations, until it assumes the outlines 
of, and has palmed itself upon the world as actual 
history. 

This simplest form is that which alone appears 
among the Algonkins and Dakotas. They both 
traced their lives back to four ancestors, personages 
concerned in various ways with the first things of 
time, not rightly distinguished as men or gods, but 
very positively identified with the four winds. m 
Whether from one or all of these the world was 
peopled, whether by process of generation or some 
other more obscure way, the old people had not said, 
or saying, had not agreed. 1 

It is a shade more complex when we come to the 
Creeks. They told of four men who came from the 
four corners of the earth, who brought them the 
sacred fire, and pointed out the seven sacred plants. 
They were called the Hi-you-yul-gee, a sort, of cabal- 

i Schoolcraft, Alglc Researches, i. p. 139, and Indian Tribes, 
iv. p. 229. 



80 THE SACRED NUMBER. 

istic word, the plural form of their common invoca- 
tion, hi-yo-yu. Having rendered them this service, 
the kindly visitors disappeared in a cloud, returning 
whence they came. When another and more ancient 
legend informs us that the Creeks were at first di- 
vided into four clans, and alleged a descent from four 
female ancestors, it will hardly be venturing too far 
to recognize in these four ancestors the four friendly 
patrons from the cardinal points. 1 

The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first dis- 
covered by the Spaniards, had a similar genealogical 
story, which Peter Martyr relates with various ex- 
cuses for its silliness and exclamations at its absurdi- 
ty. Perhaps the fault lay less in its lack of meaning 
than in his want of insight. It was to the effect 
that men lived in caves, and were destroyed by the 
parching rays of the sun, and were destitute of means 
to prolong their race, until they caught and subject- 
ed to their use four women who were swift of foot 
and slippery as eels. These were the mothers of the 
race of men. Or again, it was said that a certain 
king had a huge gourd which contained all the wa- 
ters of the earth ; four brothers, who coming into 
the world at one birth had cost their mother her life, 
ventured to the gourd to fish, picked it up, but fright- 
ened by the old king's approach, dropped it on the 
ground, broke it into fragments, and scattered the 
waters over the earth, forming the seas, lakes, and 
rivers, as they now are. These brothers in time be- 
came the fathers of a nation, and to them they traced 

i Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country,^. 81, 82, and my 
essay, The National Legend of the Chahta Muskokee Tribe, p. 11. 



THE FOUR RAIN BRINGERS. 



81 



their lineage. 1 With the previous examples before 
our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in these qua- 
ternions once more the four winds, the bringers of 
rain, so swift and so slippery. 

The Navajos are a rude tribe north of Mexico. 
Yet even they have an allegory to the effect that 
when the first man came up from the ground under 
the figure of the moth-worm, the four spirits of the 
cardinal points were already there, and hailed him 
with the exclamation, " Lo, he is of our race." 2 It is 
a poor and feeble effort to tell the same old story. 

The Mayas of Yucatan shared this ancestral legend, 
for in an ancient manuscript found bv Mr. Stephens 
during his travels, it appears they looked back to four 
parents or leaders called the Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, 
this was a trait of all the civilized nations of Central 
America and Mexico. An author who was very un- 
willing to admit any mythical interpretation of the 
coincidence, has adverted to it in tones of astonish- 
ment : "In all the Aztec and Toltec histories there 
are four characters who constantly reappear ; either 
as priests or envoys of the gods, or of hidden and 
disguised majesty ; or as guides and chieftains of tribes 
during their migrations; or as kings and rulers of 
monarchies after their foundation ; and even to the 
time of the conquest, there are always four princes 

1 Peter Martyr, De Reb. Ocean., Dec. i. lib. ix. The story 
is told more at length by the Brother Ramon Pane, in the ab- 
stract of native traditions he drew up by the order of Columbus. 
I have given them from several sources, among others the un- 
published works of Las Casas, in The Arawack Language in its 
Linguistic and Ethnological Relations, Phila., 1S71. 

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 89. 

6 



82 



TIIE SACRED X UMBER. 



who compose the supreme government, whether in 
Guatemala, or in Mexico." 1 This fourfold division 
points not to a common history but to a common 
nature. The ancient heroes and demigods, who, four 
in number, figure in all these antique traditions, 
were not men of flesh and blood, but the invisible 
currents of air who brought the fertilizing showers. 

They corresponded to the four gods Bacab. who in 
the Yucatecan mythology were supposed to stand one 
at each corner of the world, supporting, like gigantic 
caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the 
general deluge all other gods and men were swallowed 
by the waters they alone escaped to people it anew. 
These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, Ix, 
and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, 
west, and south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so 
here each quarter of the compass was distinguished 
by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, the 
west by black, and the north by white. The names 
of these mysterious personages, employed somewhat 
as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted the calendar 
of the Mayas, and by their propitious or portentous 
combinations was arranged their system of judicial 
astrology. They were the gods of rain, and under 
the title Chac, the Red Ones, were the chief ministers 
of the highest power. As such they were represent- 
ed in the religious ceremonies by four old men, con- 
stant attendants on the high priest in his official 
functions. 2 In this most civilized branch of the 

1 Brasseur, Le Liv. Sac, Introd., p. cxvii. 

2 Diego de Landa, Hel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, pp. 160, 206, 
l08. ed. Brasseur. The learned editor, in a note to p. 208, 
states erroneously the disposition of the colors, as may be seen 



QUICHE LEGENDS. 



8a 



red race, as everywhere else, Ave thus find four my- 
thological characters prominent beyond all others, 
giving a peculiar physiognomy to the national le- 
gends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more 
we recognize by signs infallible, personifications of 
the four cardinal points and the four winds. 

They rarely lose altogether their true character. 
The Quiche legends tell us that the four men who 
were first created by the Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, 
the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of eye and 
swift of foot, that " they measured and saw all that 
exists at the four corners and the four angles of the 
sky and the earth ;" that they did not fulfil the design 
of their maker " to bring forth and produce when 
the season of harvest was near," until he blew into 
their eyes a cloud, " until their faces were obscured 
as when one breathes on a mirror." Then he 
gave them of wives the four mothers of our species, 
names were Falling Water, Beautiful Water, Water 
of Serpents, and Water of Birds. 1 Truly he who 
can see aught but a transparent myth in this 

by comparing the document on p. 395. This dedication of 
colors to the cardinal points is universal in Central Asia. The 
geographical names of the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the Yellow 
Sea, or Persian Gulf, and the White Sea or the Mediterranean, 
are derived from this association. The cities of China, many 
of them at least, have their gates which open toward the cardi- 
nal points painted of certain colors, and precisely these four, 
the white, the black, the red, and the yellow, are those which 
in Oriental myth the mountain in the centre of Paradise shows 
to the different cardinal points. (Sepp, Heidenthum unci Chris- 
tentlium i. p. 177.) The coincidence furnishes food for reflection. 
1 Le Livre Sacre cles Quiches, pp. 203-5, note. 



84 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



recital, is a realist that would astonish Euhemerus 
himself. 

There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion he- 
sides this of the first men, one that hears marks of a 
profound contemplation on the course of nature, one 
that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of 
the earthly conception. It is seen in the four per- 
sonages, or perhaps we should say modes of action, 
that make up the one Supreme Cause of All, Hura- 
kan, the hreath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They 
are He who creates, He who' gives Form, He who 
gives Life, and He who reproduces. 1 This acute and 
extraordinary analysis of the origin and laws of or- 
ganic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the 
action of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for 
which we were hardly prepared, and is perhaps the 
single in stance of anything like metaphysics among 
the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier portions 
of the legends of the Quiches, and is the more surely 
of native origin as it has been quite lost on both their 
translators. 

Go where we will, the same story meets us. The 
empire of the Incas was attributed in the sacred 

1 The analogy is remarkable between these and the " quatre 
actes de la puissance generatrice jusqu'a. l'entier developpement 
des corps organises," portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean 
bas-reliefs. See Guigniaut, Religions de V Antiquite, i. p. 37-4. 
It were easy to multiply the instances of such parallelism in the 
growth of religious thought in the Old and New World, but I de- 
signedly refrain from doing so. They have already given rise to 
false theories enough, and a discussion of their significance is not 
embraced in the design of the present work. For this I must re- 
fer the reader to the general principles of mythology laid down in 
my work entitled: The Religious Sentiment, its Source and Aim. 



THE ANCESTORS OE THE INCAS. 



85 



chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to take 
charge of the records, to four brothers and their 
wives. These mythical civilizers are said " to have 
emerged from a cave called Pacari tampu, a birthplace," 
which may also mean " the House of Subsistence," 
reminding us of the four heroes who in Aztec legend 
set forth to people the world from Tonacatepec, " the 
mountain of our subsistence ; " or again it may mean 
— for like many of these mythical names it seems to 
have been designedly chosen to bear a double con- 
struction — the Lodgings of the Dawn, recalling an- 
other Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of 
the race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave it- 
self suggests to the classical reader that of Eolus, or 
.may be paralleled with that in which the Iroquois 
fabled the winds were imprisoned by their lord, 1 or 
with that in which, according to early Christian le- 
gend, Jesus was born. These brothers were of no 
common kin. Their voices could shake the earth 
and their hands heap up mountains. Like the thun- 
der god, they stood on the hills and hurled their 
sling-stones to the four corners of the earth. When 
one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven 
or was turned into stone, and it was by their aid and 
counsel that the savages who possessed the land re- 
nounced their barbarous habits and commenced to 
till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this 
in turn is but another transformation of the Protean 
myth we have so long pursued. 2 

1 Miiller, Amer. Urretigionen, p. 105, after Strahlheim, who is, 
however, no authority. 

2 Miiller, ubi supra, pp. 308 sqq., gives a good resume of the 
different versions of the myth of the four brothers in Peru. 



86 



THE SACRED NUMBER 



There are traces of the same legend among many 
other tribes of the continent, but the trustworthy 
reports we have of them are too scanty to permit 
analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, 
for it is every way likely that could we resolve their 
meaning they too would carry us back to the four 
winds. * 

1 The Tupis of Brazil claim a descent from four brothers, 
three of whose names are given by Hans Staden, a XDrisoner 
among them about 1550, as Krimen, Hermittan, and Coem ; the 
latter he explains to mean the morning, the east {le matin, print- 
ed by mistake le mutin, Relation tie Hans Staden de Ilomberg, p. 
271, ed. Ternaux Compans; compare Dias, Bice, da Lingua Titpy, 
p. 47). Their southern relatives, the Guaranis of Paraguay, 
also spoke of the four brothers and gave two of their names as 
Tupi and Guarani, respectively parents of the tribes called after 
them (Guevara, Hist, del Paraguay, lib. i. cap. ii., in Waitz). 
The fourfold division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced 
back to four chieftains created by their hero god Nemqueteba 
(A. von Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 246). The Nahuas 
of Mexico much more frequently spoke of themselves as descend- 
ants of four or eight original families than of seven (Hum- 
boldt, ibid., p. 317, and others in Waltz, Anthropologic, iv. pp. 
3G, 37). The Sacs or Sauks of the Upper Mississippi supposed 
that two men and two women were first created, and from 
these four sprang all men (Morse, Rep. on Ind. Affairs, App. 
p. 138). The Ottoes, Pawnees, " and other Indians," had a tradi- 
tion that from eight ancestors all nations and races were de- 
scended (Id., p. 219). This duplication of the number probably 
arose from assigning the first four men four women as wives. 
The div:sion into clans or totems which prevails in most 
northern tribes rests theoretically on descent from different an- 
cestors. The Shawnees and Natchez were divided into four 
such clans, the Choctaws, Xavajos, and Iroquois into eight, 
thus proving that in those tribes also the myth I have been dis- 
cussing was recognized. The tribe visited by Lederer in 
southern Virginia was composed of four clans, who did not in- 

V 

X 



NUMEROUS MYTHS. 



87 



Let no one suppose, however, that this was the 
only myth of the origin of man. Far from it. It 
was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter attempt 
to show, the laws that governed the formations of 
•such myths not only allowed but enjoined great 
divergence of form. Equally far was it from being 
the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon 
to express the action of the winds as the rain bringers. 
They too were many, but may all be included in a 
twofold division, either as the winds were supposed to 
flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from 
its central point. Thus they are spoken of under such 
figures as four tortoises at the angles of the earthly 
plane who vomit forth the rains, 1 or four gigantic 
caryatides who sustain the heavens and blow the 
winds from their capacious lungs, 2 or more frequently 
as four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on 
high, as the Haitians, draining the waters of the 
primitive world, 3 as four animals who bring from 
heaven the maize, 4 as four messengers whom the god 
of air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the 
spittle he ejects toward the cardinal points which is 
straightway transformed into wild rice, tobacco, and 
maize. 5 

Constantly from the palace of the lord of the 
world, seated on the high hill of heaven, blow four 

termarry and had separate burial places {Discoveries, p. 5. 
London, 1672). 

1 Mandans in Catlin, Letts, and Notes, i. p. 181. 

2 The Mayas, Co^olludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 8. 

3 The Navajos, Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 89. 

4 The Quiches, Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 79. 

6 The Inxpiois, Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 109. 



88 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



winds, pour four streams, refreshing and fecundating 
the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran 
there is mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the 
virgin daughter of Ormuzcl, whence four all nourish- 
ing rivers roll their waves toward the cardinal 
points ; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the 
sacred .mountain Himavata grows the tree of life 
Zampu, from whose foot once more flow the waters 
of life in four streams to the four quarters of the. 
world ; and therefore it is that the same tale is told 
by the Chinese of the mountain Kouantun, by the 
Brahmins of Mount Meru, by the Edda of the moun- 
tain in Asaheim whence flows the spring Hvergelmir, 
and by the Parsees of Mount Albors in the Cau- 
casus. 1 Each nation called their sacred mountain 
" the navel of the earth ; " for not only was it the 
supposed centre of the habitable world, but through 
it, as the foetus through the umbilical cord, the earth 
drew her increase. Beyond all other spots were they 
accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of re- 
pose, and eternal youth ; there rippled the waters 
of health, there blossomed the tree of life ; they were 
fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came the 
tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of 
Feridun, the Eden gardens of the world. The name 
shows the origin, for paradise (in Sanscrit, para clesa) 
means literally high land. There, in the unanimous 
opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed de- 
light the first of men ; thence driven by untoward 
fate, no more anywhere could they find the path 

1 For these myths see Sepp, Das ffeidenthum und dessen Be- 
deutung fiir das Christenthum, i. p. Ill sqq. The interpretation 
is of course my own. 



THE EARTHLY PARADISE. 



89 



thither. Some thought that in the north, among the 
fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains 
of the moon where dwelt the long-lived Ethiopians, 
and others again that in the farthest east, underneath 
the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness ; 
but many were of opinion that somewhere in the 
western sea, beyond the pillars of Hercules and the 
waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of the 
Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly 
Elysion. 

It is not without design that I recall this early 
dream of the religious fancy. When Christopher 
Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this ter- 
restrial paradise, 1 broke the enchantment of the 
cloudy sea and found a new world, it was but to light 
upon the same race of men, deluding themselves with 
the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a 
long lost garden of their youth. They told him that 
still to the west, amid the mountains of Paria, was a 
spot whence flowed miglury streams over all lands, 
and which in sooth was the spot he sought ; 2 and 
when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still 
remained the fabled island of Boiuca, or Bimini, 
hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola, whose glebe 
was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as to 
restore youth and vigor to the worn out and the 
ag^ed. 3 This was no fiction of the natives to rid them- 
selves of burdensome guests. Long before the white 
man approached their shores, families had started 

1 See Navarrete, Viages, i. p. 259. 

2 Peter Martyr, Be Reb. Ocean., Dec. iii., Lb. ix. p. 195 : 
Colon, 1574. 

* Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202. 



90 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



from Cuba, Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these 
renovating waters, and not returning, were supposed 
by 'their kindred to have been detained by the de- 
lights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in 
its seductive joys, forgetful of former ties. 1 

Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same 
belief that pointed to the impenetrable forests of the 
Orinoko, the ancient homes of the Caribs and Ara- 
wacks, and there located the famous realm of El 
Dorado with its imperial capital Manoa, abounding 
in precious metals and all manner of gems, peopled 
by a happy race, and governed by an equitable ruler. 

The Aztec priests never chanted more regretful 
dirges than when they sang of Tulan, the cradle of 
their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful, indolent 
happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of 
sweet voices and gay plumage, whose generous soil 
brought forth spontaneously maize, cocoa, aromatic 
gums, and fragrant flowers. "Land of riches and 
plenty, where the gourds grow an arm's length across, 
where an ear of corn is a load for a stout man, and 
its stalks are as high as trees ; land where the cotton 
ripens of its own accord of all rich tints ; land 
abounding with limpid emeralds, turquoises, gold 
and silver/' 2 This land was also called Tlalocan, 

1 Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this won- 
drous spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon 
and De Soto had some lurking hope of discovering it in their 
expeditions thither. I have examined the myth somewhat 
at length in Notes on tlie Floridian Peninsula, its Literary His- 
tory, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities, pp. 99, 100 : Philadelphia, 
1859. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espaha, lib. iii. cap. iii. 



THE EARTHLY PARADISE 



91 



from Tlaloc, the god of rain, who there had his 
dwelling-place, and Tlapallan, the land of colors, or 
the red land, for the hues of the sky at sunrise floated 
over it. Its inhabitants were surnamed children of 
the air, or of Quetzalcoatl, and from its centre rose 
the holy mountain Tonacatepec, the mountain of our 
life or subsistence. Its supposed location was in the 
east, whence in that country blow the winds that 
bring mild rains, says Sahagun, and that missionary 
was himself asked, as coming from the east, whether 
his home was in Tlapallan ; more definitely by some 
it was situated among the lofty peaks on the frontiers 
of Guatemala, and all the great rivers that water the 
earth were supposed to have their sources there. 1 
But here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined. 
" There is a Tulan," says an ancient authority, 
" where the sun rises, and there is another in the land 
of shades, and another where the sun reposes, and 
thence came we ; and still another where the sun re- 
poses, and there dwells God." 2 

1 Le Livre Sacre des Quiche's, Introd., p. clviii. 

2 Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, Hist, de Mexique, 
i. p. 167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely un- 
certain. The Abbe Brasseur saw in it the ultima Thule of the 
ancient geographers, which suited his idea of early American his- 
tory. Hernando De Soto found a village of this name on the 
Mississippi, or near it. But on looking into Gallatia's vocabula- 
ries, tulla turns out to be the Choctaw word for stone, and as De 
Soto was then in tlie Choctaw country, the coincidence is ex- 
plained at once. Buschmann, who spells it Tollan, takes it from 
tolin, a rush, and translates juncetum, Ort der Binsen. (Ueber 
die Aztekischen Orstnamen, p. 682.) Those who have attempted 
to make history from these mythological fables have been much 
puzzled about the location of this mystic land. Humboldt has 



92 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



The myth of the Quiches but changes the name of 
this pleasant land. With them it was -Pan-joaxil-pa- 
cayala, where the waters divide in falling, or, between 
the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was " an 
excellent land, full of pleasant things, where was 
store of white corn and yellow corn, where one could 
not count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of 
honey and food." Over it ruled the lord of the air, 
and from it the four sacred animals carried the corn 
to make the flesh of men. 1 

Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we 
hear the old story repeated of the garden where the 
first two brothers dwelt. It lay between a meadow 
and that lofty peak which supports the heavens and 
the palaces of the gods. " Many trees were there, 
such as yield flowers and roses, very luscious fruits,- 
divers herbs, and aromatic spices." The names of 
the brothers were the Wind of Nine Serpents, and 
the Wind of Nine Caverns. The first was as an 
eagle, and flew aloft over the waters that poured 

placed it on the northwest coast, Cabrera atPalenque, Clavigero 
north of Anahuac, etc., etc. M. de Charencey remarks that more 
than twenty cities in Mexico and Central America bore this 
name (Le Mythe de Votan, p. 29. Alencon, 1871). In view of 
this it is amusing to find Mr. Bancroft locate it so definitely 
(Native Races, ii. p. 99.) Aztlan, literally, the White Land, is 
another name of originally mythical purport, which it would be 
equally vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. In the extract in 
the text, the word translated God is Qabavil, an old word for the 
highest god, either from a root meaning to open, to disclose, or 
from one of similar form signifying to wonder, to marvel ; liter- 
ally, therefore, the lievealer, or the Wondrous One (Vocab. de 
la Lengua Quiche, p. 209 : Paris, 1862). 

1 Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 80, Le Livre SacH, p, 195. 



THE CARDINAL POINTS. 



93 



around their enchanted garden; the second was as a 
serpent with wings, who proceeded with such velocity 
that he pierced rocks and walls. They were too swift 
to be seen by the sharpest eye, and were one near as 
they passed, he was only aware of a whisper and a 
rustling like that of the wind in the leaves. 1 

Wherever, in short, the lust of gold lured the early 
adventurers, they were told of some nation a little 
farther on, some wealthy and prosperous land, abun- 
dant and fertile, satisfying the desire of the heart. 
It was sometimes deceit, and it was sometimes the 
credited fiction of the earthly paradise, that in all 
ages has with a promise of perfect joy consoled the 
aching heart of man. 

It is instructive to study the associations that natur- 
ally group themselves around each of the cardinal 
points, and watch how these are mirrored on the sur- 
face of language, and have directed the current of 
thought. Jacob Grimm has performed this task with 
fidelity and beauty as regards the Aryan race, but 
the means are wanting to apply his searching method 
to the indigenous tongues of America. Enough if in 
general terms their mythological value be determined. 

When the day begins, man wakes from his slum- 
bers, faces the rising sun and prays. The east is 
before him ; by it he learns all other directions ; it is 
to him what the north is to the needle ; with refer- 
ence to it he assigns in his mind the position of the 
three other cardinal points. 2 There is the starting- 

1 Garcia, Origen de los Indios., lib. iv. cap. 4. 

2 Compare the German expression sick orientiren, to right one's 
self by the east, to understand one's surroundings. 



94 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



place of tlie celestial fires, the home of the sun, the 
womb of the morning. It represents in space the 
besfimiinsf of things in time, and as the bright and 
glorious creatures of the sky come forth thence, man 
conceits that his ancestors also in remote ages wan- 
dered from the orient ; there in the opinion of many 
in both the old and new worlds was the cradle of the 
race; there in Aztec legend was the fabled land of 
Tlapallan, and the wind from the east was called the 
wind of Paradise, Tlalocavitl. 

From this direction came, according to the almost 
unanimous opinion of the Indian tribes, those hero 
gods who taught them arts and religion; thither they 
returned, and from thence they would again appear 
to resume their ancient sway. As the dawn brings 
light, and with light is associated in every human 
mind the ideas of knowledge, safety, protection, 
majesty, divinity, as it dispels the spectres of night, 
as it defines the cardinal points, and brings forth the 
sun and the day, it occupied the primitive mind to an 
extent that can hardly be magnified beyond the truth. 
It is in fact the central fio-ure in most natural reli- 
gions. 

The west, as the grave of the heavenly luminaries, 
or rather as their goal and place of repose, brings 
with it thoughts of sleep, of death, of tranquillity, of 
rest from labor. When the evening of his days was 
come, when his course was run, and man had sunk 
from sight, he was supposed to follow the sun and 
find some spot of repose for his tired soul in the dis- 
tant west. There, with general consent, the tribes 
north of the Gulf of Mexico supposed the happy 
hunting-grounds ; there, taught by the same analogy, 



NAMES OF THE CARDINAL POINTS. 95 

the ancient Aryans placed the Nerriti, the exodus, the 
land of the dead. " The old notion among us," said 
on one occasion a distinguished chief of the Creek 
nation, " is that when Ave die, the spirit goes the way 
the sun goes, to the west, and there joins its family 
and friends who went before it.'' 1 

In the northern hemisphere the shadows fall to the 
north, thence blow cold and furious winds, thence 
come the suoav and early thunder. Perhaps all its 
primitive inhabitants, of whatever race, thought it 
the seat of the mighty gods.' 2 A floe of ice in the 
Arctic Sea was the home of the guardian spirit of the 
Algonkins ; 3 on a mountain near the north star the 
Dakotas thought Heyoka chA*elt who rules the sea- 
sons ; and the realm of Mictla, the Aztec god of 
death, lay where the shadows pointed. From that 
cheerless abode his sceptre reached over all creatures, 
even the gods themselves, for sooner or later all 
must fall before him. The great spirit of the dead, 
said the Ottawas, lives in the dark north, 4 and there, 
in the opinion of the Monquis of California, resided 
their chief god, Gumongo. 5 

Unfortunately the ' makers of vocabularies have 
rarely included the words north, south, east, and west 
in their lists, and the methods of expressing these 
ideas adopted by the Indians can only be partially 
discovered. The east and west were usually called 
from the rising and setting of the sun as in our words 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of Hie Creek Country, p. 80. 

2 See Jacob Grimm, Geschichte der Deutschen Spraclie, p. 681. 

3 De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352. 

4 Bressani, Relation Abrege, p. 93. 

5 Venegas, Hist, of California, i. p. 91 : London, 1759. 



9G 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



orient and Occident, but occasionally froni traditional 
notions. The Mayas named the west the greater, 
the east the lesser debarkation; believing that while 
their culture hero Zamna came from the east with a 
few attendants, the mass of the population, arrived 
from the opposite direction. 1 The Aztecs spoke of the 
east as " the direction of Tlalocan,** the terrestrial 
paradise. But for north and south there were no 
such natural appellations, and consequently the 
greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans adopted to 
express them. The north in the Caddo tongue is 
" the place of cold/' in Dakota " the situation of the 
pines, " in Creek " the abode of the (north) star," in 
Algonkin " the home of the soul," in Aztec ; * the di- 
rection of Mictla" the realm of death, in Quiche and 
Qtiich.ua, 4i to the right hand;" 2 while for the south 
we find, such terms as in Dakota " the downward 
direction,*' in Algonkin " the place of warmth,'" in 
Quiche " to the left hand,'* while among the Eskimos 
who look in this direction for the sun. its name im- 
plies "before one,'' just as does the Hebrew word 

1 Cogolludo, Hist, de Tucathan, lib. iv. cap. iii. 

2 Alexander von Humboldt 'has asserted that the Quichuashad 
other and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal 
points drawn from the positions of the sun (Ansichten der 
Natur, ii. p. 36S). But the distinguished naturalist overlooked 
the literal meaning of the phrases he quotes for north and south, 
intip chaututa chayananpata and intip chaupunchau cliayananpata, 
literally, the sun arriving toward the midnight, the sun arriving 
toward the midday. These are evidently translations of the 
Spanish haeia la media noche, hacia el medio dia. for they could 
not have originated among a people under o*" south of the equa- 
torial line. 



THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS. 



97 



Jcedem, which, however, this more southern tribe 
applied to the east. 

We can trace the sacredness of the number four in 
other curious and unlooked-for developments. Mul- 
tiplied into the number of the fingers — the arithmetic 
of every child and ignorant man — or by adding to- 
gether the first four members of its arithmetical series 
(4+8+12+16), it gives the number forty. This was 
taken as a limit to the sacred dances of some Indian 
tribes, and by others as the highest number of chants 
to be employed in exorcising diseases. Consequently 
it came to be fixed as a limit in exercises of prepara- 
tion or purification. The females of the Orinoco 
tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and those of 
the upper Mississippi were held unclean the same 
length of time after childbirth ; such was the term 
of the Prince of Tezcuco's fast when he wished an 
heir to his throne, and such the number of slays the 
Mandans supposed it required to wash clean the 
world at the deluge. 1 

No one is ignorant how widely this belief was prev- 
alent in the old world, nor how the quadrigesimal 
is still a sacred term with some denominations of 
Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits 
us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated 
the human mind, the cross, finds here its source 
and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its sacred- 
ness in many natural religions, and have reverently 
accepted it as a mystery, or offered scores of conflict- 
ing and often debasing interpretations. It is but 

1 Catlin, Letters and Notes, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, Memoires, 
ii. p. 151 ; Gumi.lla, Hist, del Orinoco, p. 159. 

7 



98 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



another symbol of the four cardinal points, the four 
winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a 
study of its use and meaning in America. 

The Catholic missionaries found it was no new 
object of adoration to the red race, and were in doubt 
whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of 
Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. 
It was the central object in the great temple of Cozu- 
mel, and is still preserved on the bas-reliefs of the 
ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it 
had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs 
and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem 
from the walls of temples in Popoyan and Cundina- 
marca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant 
and worthy name " Tree of Our Life," or "Tree of 
our Flesh*' (Tonacaquahuitl). It represented the 
god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere 
its simple meaning. " Those of Yucatan," say the 
chroniclers, " prayed to the cross as the god of rains 
when they needed water." The Aztec goddess of 
rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated 
to her honor in the early spring victims were nailed 
to a cross and shot with arrows. Quetzalcoatl, 
god of the winds, bore as his sign of office " a mace 
like the cross of a bishop : " his robe was covered with 
them strown like flowers, and its adoration was 
throughout connected with his worship. 1 When the 

1 On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and its 
invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult 
Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, des CJiichimeques, p. 5: Sahagrm, Hist, de la 
Nueva E*paua, lib. i. cap. ii. ; Garcia. Or. de Jos Indios, lib. iii. 
cap. vi. p. 109 ; Palacios, Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala, p. 29 ; 
Cogolludo. Hist, de Yucathan. lib. iv. cap. ix ; Villagntierre 



THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS. 



99 



Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters 
they extended cords across the tranquil depths of 
some lake, thus forming a gigantic cross, and at their 
point of intersection threw in their offerings of gold, 
emeralds, and precious oils. 1 The arms of the cross 
were designed to point to the cardinal points and 
represent the four winds, the rainbringers. To con- 
firm this explanation, let us have recourse to the 
simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, and 
see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they 
employed it. 

When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would 
exert his power, he retired to some secluded spot and 
drew upon the earth the figure of a cross (its arms 
toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece 
of tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and com- 
menced to cry aloud to the spirits of the rains. 2 In 
the Blackfoot country are occasionally found ruins of 
large boulders, arranged in the form of a cross. 
These, Gen. J. M. Brown informs me are attributed 
to " the old man in the sun," Natose, who sends the 
winds. They mark his resting-places, the limbs of the 
cross representing his body and arms. Gen. Brown 
thinks they indicate the cardinal points. The Creeks 
at the festival of the Busk, celebrated, as we have 
seen, to the four winds, and according to their legends 
instituted by them, commenced with making the new 

Sotomayor, Hist, de el Itza y de el Lacandon, lib. iii. cap. 8; and 
many others might be mentioned. 

1 Rivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, p. 162, after J. 
Acosta. 

2 *Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, derevang. Briider, p. 60. 



100 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



fire. The manner of this was " to place four logs in 
the centre of the square, end to end, forming a cross, 
the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points ; in the 
centre of the cross the new fire is made." 1 This is 
the precise form of the cross which was, " without 
any doubt," affirms Las Casas, an object of worship 
on the coast near Cumana, before the Christians 
came there. 2 

As the emblem of the winds who dispense the 
fertilizing showers it is emphatically the tree of our 
life, our subsistence, and our health. It never had any 
other meaning in America, and if, as has been said, 3 
the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was per- 
haps with reference to a resurrection and a future life 
as portrayed under this symbol, indicating that the 
buried body would rise by the action of the four 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 75. Lapham and 
Pidgeon mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low 
mounds are found in the form of a cross with the arms directed 
to the cardinal points. They contain no remains. Were they 
not altars built to the Four Winds ? In the mythology of the 
Dakotas, who inhabited that region, the winds were always 
conceived as birds, and for the cross they have a native name 
literally signifying "the musquito hawk spread out " (Riggs, 
Diet, of the Dakota, s. v.) Its Maya name is vahom die, the tree 

, erected or set up, the adjective being drawn. from the military 
language and implying as a defence or protection, as the war- 
rior lifts his lance or shield (Landa, Bel. de las Cosas de Yuca- 
tan, p. G5). 

2 Historia Apologetica, MSS. cap. 125. He gives two figures 
of it, the first, two equal lines crossed at right angles ; the 
second, an oblong parallelogram, its opposite angles united by 
straight lines. The natives of Cumana were Caribs. 

3 Squier, The Serpent Symbol in America, p. 98. 



THE SYMBOL OF THE CROSS. 



101 



spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new 
existence when watered by the vernal showers. 
There is nothing far-fetched in such an explanation. 
We positively know that the Mayas placed the en- 
trails of their dead in jars, in groups of four, and which 
were called bacabs from the four rain gods. 1 

The cross frequently recurs in the ancient Egyp- 
tian writings, where it is interpreted life ; doubtless, 
could we trace the hieroglyph to its source, it 
would likewise prove to be derived from the four 
winds; that it represented the "Nile Key" is now 
rarely maintained. 

While thus recognizing the natural origin of this 
consecrated symbol, while discovering that it is based 
on the sacredness of numbers, and this in turn on the 
structure and necessary relations of the human body, 
thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that Joseph 
de Maistre and his disciples have advocated, let us on 
the other hand be equally on our guard against 
accepting the material facts which underlie these 
beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaust- 
ive explanation. That were but withered fruit for 
our labors, and it might well be asked, where is here 
the divine idea said to be dimly prefigured in mythol- 
ogy ? The universal belief in the sacredness of num- 
bers is an instinctive faith in an immortal truth. 
The laws of chemical combination, of the various 
modes of motion, of all organic growth, show that 
simple numerical relations govern all the properties 
and are inherent to the very constitution of matter. 
In view of such facts is it presumptuous to predict 



1 H. de Charencey, Le Mythe de Votan, p. 39. 



102 



THE SACRED NUMBER. 



that experiment itself will prove the truth of Kepler's 
beautiful saying : " The universe is a harmonious 
whole, the soul of which is God ; numbers, figures, 
the stars, all nature, indeed, are in unison with the 
mysteries of religion ? " 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 

Relations of man to the lower animals. — Two of these, the Bird and the 
Serpent, chosen as symbols beyond all others.— The Bird throughout 
America the symbol of the Clouds and Winds. — Meaning of certain 
species.— The symbolic meaning of the Serpent derived from its mode 
of locomotion, its poisonous bite, and its power of charming. — Usually 
the symbol of the Lightning and the Waters.— The Rattlesnake 
the symbolic species in America. — The war charm. — The Cross of 
Palenque. — The god of riches. — Both symbols devoid of moral sig- 
nificance. 

THOSE stories which the Germans call Thierfabeln, 
wherein the actors are different kinds of brutes, 
seem to have a particular relish Tor children and un- 
cultivated nations. Who cannot recall with what 
delight he nourished his childish fancy on the pranks 
of Reynard the Fox, or the tragic adventures of 
Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf? The ques- 
tion has been raised whether the human traits thus 
ascribed to animals were at first taken literally, or 
were intended merely as agreeable figures of speech 
for classes of men. We cannot doubt but that the 
former was the case. Going back to the dawn of 
civilization, Ave find these relations not as amusing 
fictions, but as myths, embodying religious tenets, 
and the brute heroes held up as the ancestors of 
mankind, even as rightful claimants of man's prayers 
and praises. 

The effort has been made to trace early faiths to an 



104 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



animal worship exclusively, but it has failed, as such 
a narrow theory must. The " totems " employed to 
designate the clans among the North American tribes 
have been called in to aid the theory. But it is now 
generally conceded that the totemic badge had a 
political or social rather than a religious significance. 
Nevertheless there are instances, and many of 
them, where superstitious honors were paid the lower 
animals. The Lower Creeks, like the ancient Egyp- 
tians, venerated the alligator, and never destroyed 
one. 1 The jaguar was worshipped by the Moxos, 
and they appointed as priests those who haci escaped 
from its claws. 2 Christians as they are, the Quiches 
of Guatemala yet believe that each of them has a 
beast as a patron and protector. 3 

Man praying to the beast is a spectacle so humil- 
iating that it prompts us to seek the explanation of 
it least disparaging to the dignity of reason. We 
may remember that as a hunter the primitive man 
was always matched against the wild creatures of the 
woods, so superior to him in their dumb certainty 
of instinct, their swift motion, their muscular force, 
their permanent and sufficient clothing. Their ways 
were guided by a wit beyond his divination, and 
they gained a living with little toil or trouble. They 
did not mind the darkness so terrible to him, but 
through the night called one to the other in a tongue 
whose meaning he could not fathom, but which, he 

1 B. Roman, Nat. and Civ. Hist, of Florida, p. 101. 

2 D'Orbigny, V Homme Ame'ricain, ii. p. 235. 

3 Karl Scherzer, Die Indianer von Santa C'atalana, Istldvacan, 
p. 11. (Vienna, 1856). 



ORIGIN OF THE BIRD SYMBOL. 



105 



doubted not, was as full of purport as his own. He 
did not recognize in himself those god-like qualities 
destined to endow him with the royalty of the world, 
while far more clearly than we do he saw the sly 
and strange faculties of his antagonists. They were 
to him, therefore, not inferiors, but equals — even 
superiors. He doubted not that once upon a time he 
had possessed their instinct, they his language, but 
that some necromantic spell had been flung on them 
both to keep them asunder. None but a potent sor- 
cerer could break this charm, but such an one could 
understand the chants of birds and the howls of 
savage beasts, and on occasion transform himself into 
one or another animal, and course the forest, the air, 
or the waters, as he saw fit. Therefore, it was not 
the beast that he worshipped, but that share of the 
omnipresent deity which he thought he perceived 
under its form. 1 

Beyond all others, two subdivisions of the animal 
kingdom have so riveted the attention of men by 
their unusual powers, and enter so frequently into 
the myths of every nation of the globe, that a right 
understanding of their symbolic value is an essential 
preliminary to the discussion of the divine legends. 
They are the Bird and the Serpent. We shall not 
go amiss if we seek the reasons of their pre-eminence 
in the facility with which their peculiarities offered 
sensuous images under which to convey the idea of 
divinity, ever present in the soul of man, ever striving 
at articulate expression. 

1 That these were the real views entertained by the Indians 
in regard to the brute creation, see Heckewelder, Acc. of the 
Ind. Nations, p. 247 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. p. 520. 



106 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AXD TUE SERFEJSlT 



The bird has the incomprehensible power of flight; 
it floats in the atmosphere, it rides on the winds, it 
soars toward heaven where dwell the gods : its 
plumage is stained with the hues of the rainbow and 
the sunset; its song was man's first hint of music ; it 
• spurns the clods that impede his footsteps, and flies 
proudly over the mountains and moors where he 
toils wearily along. He sees no more enviable crea- 
ture ; he conceives the gods and angels must also 
have wings ; and pleases himself with the fancy that 
he, too, some day will shake off this coil of clay, 
and rise on pinions to the heavenly mansions. All 
living beings, say the Eskimos, have the faculty of 
soul (tarraTc), but especially the birds. 1 As messen- 
gers from the upper world and interpreters of its 
decrees, the flight and the note of birds have ever 
been anxiously observed as omens of grave import. 
" There is one bird especially," remarks the traveller 
Coreal, of the natives of Brazil, " which they regard 
as of good augury. Its mournful chant is heard 
rather by ni^ht than day. The savages say it is sent 
by their deceased friends to bring them news from 
the other world, and to encourage them against their 
enemies." 2 In Peru and in Mexico there was a 
College of Augurs, corresponding in purpose to the 
auspices of ancient Rome, who practised no other 
means of divination than watching the course and 
professing to interpret the songs of fowls. So natural 
and so general is such a superstition, and so wide- 
spread is the respect it still obtains in civilized and 

1 Egede, NacliricTiten von Gronland, p. 156. 

2 Voiages aux Indes Occidentals, pt. ii. p. 203: Amst. 1722. 



TEE WINDS AS BIRDS. 



107 



Christian lands, that it is not worth while to summon 
witnesses to show that it prevailed universally among 
the red race also. What imprinted it with redoubled 
force on their imagination was the common belief 
that birds were not only divine nuncios, but the 
visible spirits of their departed friends. The Pow- 
hatans held that a certain small wood bird received 
the souls of their princes at death, and they religiously 
refrained from doing it harm ; 1 while the Aztecs 
and various other nations thought that all good 
people, as a reward of merit, were metamorphosed at 
the close of life into feathered songsters of the grove, 
and in this form passed a certain term in the um- 
brageous bowers of Paradise. 

But the usual meaning of the bird as a symbol 
looks to a different analogy — to that which appears 
in such familiar expressions as " the wings of the 
wind," " the flying clouds." Like the wind, the bird 
sweeps through the aerial spaces, sings in the forests, 
and rustles on its course ; like the cloud, it floats in 
mid-air and casts its shadow on the earth ; like the 
lightning, it darts from heaven to earth to strike its 
unsuspecting prey. These tropes were truths to 
savage nations, and led on by that law of language 
which forced them to conceive everything as animate 
or inanimate, itself the product of a deeper law of 
thought which urges us to ascribe life to whatever 
has motion, they found no animal so appropriate for 
their purpose here as the bird. Therefore the Algon- 
kins say that birds always make the winds, that they 
create the water spouts, and that the clouds are the 

1 Beverly, Hist, de la Virginie, liv. iii. chap. viii. 



108 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AXD THE SERPENT. 



spreading- and agitation of their wings : 1 the Nava- 
jos, that at each cardinal point stands a white swan, 
who is the spirit of the blasts which blow from its 
dwelling ; and the Dakotas, that in the west is the 
house of the Wakinyan, the Flyers, the breezes that 
send the storms. So, also, they frequently explain' 
the thunder as the sound of the cloud-bird flapping 
his wings, and the lightning as the fire that flashes 
from his tracks, like the sparks which the buffalo 
scatters when he scours oyer a stony plain. 2 The 
thunder cloud was also a bird to the Caribs, and they 
imagined it produced the lightning in true Carib 
fashion by blowing it through a hollow reed, just as 
they to this day hurl their poisoned darts. 3 Most of 
the natives of the Xortkwest coast explain the thun- 
der as the napping of the wings of a giant bird, the 
lightning as the flash of his eye. 4 Tupis, Iroo{uois, 
Athapascas, for certain, perhaps all the families of the 
red race, were the subject pursued, partook of this per- 
suasion ; among them all it would probably be found 
that the same figures of speech were used in compar- 
ing clouds and winds with the feathere'd species as 
among us, with however this most significant differ- 
ence, that whereas among us they are figures and 
nothing more, to them they expressed literal facts. 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420. 

2 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 191 . Xew York, 1849. 
This is a trustworthy and meritorious book, which can be said of 
very few collections of Indian traditions. They were collected 
during a residence of seven years in our northwestern territories, 
and are usually verbally faithful to the native narrations. 

3 De La Borde, Relation des Caraibes, p. 7. Paris, 1G74. 

4 M. Macfie, Vancouver Island and British Columbia, p. 456. 



THE EAGLE AND THE OWL. 



109 



How important a symbol did they thus become ! 
For the winds, the clouds, producing the thunder and , 
the changes that take place in the ever-shifting pano- 
rama of the sky, the rain bringers, lords of the sea- 
sons, and not this only, but the primary type of the 
soul, the life, the breath of man and the world, these in 
their role in mythology are second to nothing. There- 
fore as the symbol of these august powers, as messen- 
ger of the gods, and as the embodiment of departed 
spirits, no one will be surprised if they find the bird 
figure most prominently in the myths of the red race. 

Sometimes some particular species seems to have 
been chosen as most befitting these dignified attri- 
butes. No citizen of the United States will be 
apt to assert that their instinct led the indigenes of 
our territory astray, when they chose, with nigh 
unanimous consent, the great American eagle as that 
fowl beyond all others proper to typify the supreme 
control and the most admirable qualities. Its fea- 
thers composed the war flag of the Creeks, and its 
images carved in wood or its stuffed skin surmounted 
their council lodges (Bartram) ; none but an approved 
warrior dare wear it among the Cherokees (Timber- 
lake) ; and the Dakotas allowed such an honor only 
to him who had first touched the corpse of the com- 
mon foe (De Smet). The Natchez and Akanzas seem 
to have paid it even religious honors, and to have 
installed it in their most sacred shrines (Sieur de 
Tonty, Du Pratz) ; and very clearly it was not so 
much for ornament as for a mark of dignity and a 
recognized sign of worth that its plumes were so 
highly prized. The natives of Zuni, in New Mexico, 
employed four of its feathers to represent the four 



110 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



winds in their invocations for rain (Whipple), and 
probably it was the eagle which a tribe in Upper 
California (the Acagchemem) worshipped under the 
name Panes. Father Geronimo Boscana describes it 
as a species of vulture, and relates that one of them 
was immolated yearly, with solemn ceremony, in the 
temple of each village. Xot a drop of blood was 
spilled, and the body was burned. Yet with an 
amount of faith that staggered even the Romanist, 
the natives maintained and believed that it was the 
same individual bird they sacrificed each year ; more 
than this, that the same bird was slain by each of the 
villages ! 1 

The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Quiches, Mayas, 
Peruvians, Araucanians, and Algonkins as sacred to 
the lord of the dead. " The Owl " was one of the names 
of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in the north,' 2 
and the wind from that quarter was supposed by the 
Chipeways to be made by the owl as the south by the 
butterfly. The same tribe called the bridge which 
they said the souls of the departed must cross to 
arrive at the land of spirits, the " Owl Bridge." 3 As 

1 Acc. of the Tnds. of California, ch. ix. Eng. trans, by Robin- 
son. New York, 1847. The Acagchemem were a branch of the 
Netela tribe, who dwelt near the mission San Juan Capistrano 
(see Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, etc., p. 548). 

2 Called in the Aztec tongue Tecolotl, night owl ; literally, the 
stone scorpion. The transfer was mythological. The Christians 
prefixed to this word tlaca, man, and thus formed a name for 
Satan, which Prescott and others have translated " rational 
owl." No such deity existed in Ancient Anahuac (see Busch- 
mann, Die Yoelker lind Spraclien JVeu Mexico's, p. 262). 

3 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420. Barraga, OtcMpwe Diet 
s. y. Kahokajogan. 



THE SERPENT AND THE DO YE. 



Ill 



the bird of night, it was the fit emissary of him who 
rules the darkness of the grave. Something in the 
looks of the creature as it sapiently stares and blinks 
in the light, or perhaps that it works while others 
sleep, got for it the character of wisdom. So the 
Creek priests carried with them as the badge of their 
learned profession the stuffed skin of one of these 
birds, thus modestly hinting their erudite turn of 
mind; 1 the Arickarees, according to Gen. J. M. 
Brown, place one above the "medicine stone " in 
their council lodge, and the culture hero of the Mon- 
quis of California was represented, like Pallas 
Athene, having one as his inseparable companion 
(Venegas). 

As the associate of the god of light and air, and as 
the antithesis therefore of the owl, the Aztecs reve- 
renced a bird called quetzal, which I believe is a 
species of parroquet. Its plumage is of a bright 
green hue, and was prized extravagantly as a decora- 
tion. It was one of the symbols and part of the 
name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythical civilizer, and 
the prince of all sorts of singing birds, myriads of 
whom were fabled to accompany him on his journeys. 

The tender and hallowed associations that have so 
widely shielded the dove from harm, which for 
instance Xenophon mentions among the ancient Per- 
sians, were not altogether unknown to the tribes of 
the New World. Neither the Hurons nor Mandans 
would kill them, for they believed they were inhab- 

1 William Bartram, Travels, p. 504. Columbus found the na- 
tives of the Antilles wearing tunics with figures of these birds 
embroidered upon them. Prescott, Conq. of Mexico, i. p. 58, 
note. 



112 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AXD THE SERPENT. 



ited by the souls of the departed, 1 and it is said, but 
on less satisfactory authority, that they enjoyed simi- 
lar immunity among the Mexicans. Their soft and 
plaintive note and sober russet hue widely enlisted 
the sympathy of man, and linked them with his more 
tender feelings. 

" As wise as the serpent, as harmless as the dove," 
is an antithesis that might pass current in any human 
language. They are the emblems of complementary, 
often contrasted qualities. Of all animals, the ser- 
pent is the most mysterious. No wonder it possessed 
the fancy of the observant child of nature. Alone 
of creatures it swiftly progresses without feet, fins, 
or wings. 44 There be three things which are too 
wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not," said 
wise King Solomon; and the chief of them were 
44 the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent 
upon a rock." 

Its sinuous course is like to nothing: so much as 
that of a winding river, which therefore we often 
call serpentine. The name Serpentine is borne by 
an English stream ; a river in British America is 
called the Serpent ; and in Arcadia the Greeks had the 
Ophis. So with the Indians. Kennebec, a stream in 
Maine, in the Algonkin means snake, and Antietam, 
the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an 
Iroquois dialect has the same significance. How 
easily might savages, construing the figure literally, 
make the serpent a river or water god ! Many species 
being amphibious would confirm the idea. A lake 

i Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1636, ch. ix. Catlin, Letters and 
Notes, Lett. 22. 



THE RATTLESNAKE. 



113 



watered by innumerable tortuous rills wriggling into 
it, is well* calculated for the fabled abode of the king 
of the snakes. Whether from this or not we may 
not say, but certain it is that both Algonkins and 
Iroquois had a myth that in the great lakes dwelt a 
monster serpent, of irascible temper, who unless ap- 
peased by meet offerings raised a tempest or broke the 
ice beneath the feet of those venturing on his domain, 
and swallowed them down. 1 

The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively 
honored by the red race. It is slow to attack, but 
venomous in the extreme, and possesses the power of 
the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small 
birds and squirrels. Probably this much talked of 
fascination is nothing more than by its presence near 
their nests to incite them to attack, and to hazard 
near and nearer approaches to their enemy in hope 
to force him to retreat, until once within the compass 
of his fell swoop, they fall victims to their temerity. 
I have often watched a cat act thus. Whatever ex- 
planation may be received, the fact cannot be ques- 
tioned, and is ever attributed by the unreflecting to 
some diabolic spell cast upon them by the animal. 
They have the same strange susceptibility to the 
influence of certain sounds as the vipers, in which 
lies the secret of snake charming. Most of the In- 
dian magicians were familiar with this singularity. 
They employed it with telling effect to put beyond 
question their intercourse with the unseen powers, 

1 Eel. de la Nouv. France, An 1648, p. 75 ; Cusic, Trad. Hist, 
of the Six Nations, pt. iii. The latter is the work of a native 
Tuscarora chief. It is republished in Schoolcraft's Indian 
Tribes, but is of little value. 

8 



1U SYMBOLS OF THE BLED AXD THE SERPENT. 



and to vindicate the potency of their own guardian 
spirits who thus enabled them to handle with im- 
punity the most venomous of reptiles. 1 The well- 
known antipathy of these serpents to certain plants, 
for instance the hazel, which bound around the 
ankles is an efficient protection against their attacks, 
and perhaps some antidote to their poison used by 
the magicians, led to their frequent introduction in 
religious ceremonies. Such exhibitions must have 
made a profound impression on the spectators, and 
redounded in a corresponding degree to the glory of 
the performer. M Who is a manito ? " asked the mystic 
meda chant of the Algonkins. " He," is the reply, 
4 - he who walketh with a serpent, walking on the 
ground, he is a manito." 2 And the intimate alliance 
of this symbol with the mysteries of the Unknown, is 
reflected in some dialects of their language, and also 
in that of their neighbors the Dakotas, where the 
same words manito, wakan, which express the concep- 
tion of the supernatural, are also used as names of 
this species of animals. This curious fact is not with- 
out parallel, for in both Arabic and Hebrew the 

1 For example, in Brazil. Miiller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 277; in 
Yucatan. Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 4; among 
the western Algonkins. Hennepin, Decouverte dans VAmer. Sep*, 
ten. chap. 33. Dr. Hammond has expressed the opinion that the 
Xorth American Indians enjoy the same immunity from the 
virus of the rattlesnake that certain African tribes do from some 
vegetable poisons {Hygiene, p. 73). But his observation must be 
at fault, for many travellers mention the dread these serpents 
inspired, and the frequency of death from their bites, e. g. ReL 
Kouv. France, 1667, p. 22. 

2 Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, 
p. 356. 



THE RATTLESNAKE. 115 

word for serpent has many derivatives, meaning to 
have intercourse with demoniac powers, to practise 
magic, and to consult familiar spirits. 1 

The pious founder of the Moravian brotherhood, 
the Count of Zinzendorf, owed his life on one occa- 
sion to this deeply rooted superstition. He was 
visiting a missionary station among the Shawnees, in 
the Wyoming valley. Recent quarrels with the 
whites had unusually irritated this unruly folk, and 
they resolved to make him their first victim. After 
he had retired to his secluded hut, several of their 
braves crept upon him, and cautiously lifting the 
corner of the lodge, peered in. The venerable man was 
seated before a little fire, a volume of the Scriptures 
on his knees, lost in the perusal of the sacred words. 
While they gazed, a huge rattlesnake, unnoticed by 
him, trailed across his feet, and rolled itself into a 
coil in the comfortable warmth of the fire. Immediately 
the would-be murderers forsook their purpose and 
noiselessly retired, convinced that this was indeed a 
man of God. 

A more unique trait than any of these is its habit 
of casting its skin every spring, thus as it were re- 
newing its life. In temperate latitudes the rattle- 

i In Arabic dzann is serpent ; dzanan a spirit, a soul, or the 
heart. So in Hebrew nachas, serpent, has many derivatives 
signifying to hold intercourse 'with demons, to conjure, a 
magician, etc. See Noldeke in the Zeitschrift fiir Voelkerpsyclw- 
logie und Sprachwissenschaft, i. p. 413. The dialects of the 
Algonkin referred to are the Shawnee and Saukie (Gallatin's 
Vocabularies). In Otoe Waka, or according to an earlier vocab- 
ulary Wacong t is snake. Roehrig gives another example where 
the terminal n of wakan is dropped. (Language of the Dakota, 
p. 14). In the Crow dialect of Dakota, iah'ise snake, and isah'e 
spirit, deity, present similarity (Hayden's Vocabularies). 



116 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



snake, like the leaves and flowers, retires from sight 
during the cold season, and at the return of kindly 
warmth puts on a new and brilliant coat. Its cast-off 
skin was carefully collected by the savages and 
stored in the medicine bag as possessing remedial 
powers of high excellence. Itself thus immortal, 
they thought it could impart its vitality to them. So 
when the mother was travailing in sore pain, and the 
danger neared that the child would be born silent, 
the attending women hastened to catch some serpent 
and give her its blood to drink. 1 

It is well known that in ancient art this animal 
was the symbol of iEsculapius, and to this day, Pro- 
fessor Agassiz found that the Maues Indians, who 
live between the upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers 
in Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any 
" remedio," give it that of a serpent. 2 

Probably this notion that it was annually rejuven- 
ated led to its adoption as a symbol of Time among 
the Aztecs ; or, perchance, as they reckoned by suns, 
and the figure of the sun, a circle, corresponds to 
nothing animate but a serpent with its tail' in its 
mouth, eating itself, as it were, this may have been 
its origin. Either of them is more likely than that 
the symbol arose from the recondite reflection that 
time is " never ending, still beginning, still creating, 
still destroying," as has been suggested. 

Only, however, within the last few years has the 
significance of the serpent symbol in its length and 
breadth been satisfactorily explained, and its fre- 
quent recurrence accounted for. By a searching 

1 Alexander Henry, Travels, p. 117. 

2 Bost. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. 7G, p. 21. 



THE LIGHTNING SERPENT, 



117 



analysis of Greek and German mythology, Dr. 
Schwarz, of Berlin, has shown that the meaning 
which is paramount to all others in this emblem is 
the lightning; a meaning drawn from the close 
analogy which the serpent in its motion, its quick 
spring, and mortal bite, has to the zigzag course, the 
rapid flash, and sudden stroke of the electric dis- 
charge. He even goes so far as to imagine that by 
this resemblance the serpent first acquired the vener- 
ation of men. But this is an extravagance not sup- 
ported by more thorough research. He has further 
shown with great aptness of illustration how, by its 
dread effects, the lightning, the heavenly serpent, 
became the god of terror and the opponent of such 
heroes as Beowulf, St. George, Thor. Perseus, and 
others, mythical representations of the fearful war of 
the elements in the thunder storm; how from its 
connection with the advancing summer and fertiliz- 
ing showers it bore the opposite character of the 
deity of fruitfulness, riches, and plenty ; how, as 
occasionally kindling the woods where it strikes, it 
was associated with the myths of the descent of fire 
from heaven, and as in popular imagination where it 
falls it scatters the thunderbolts in all directions, the 
flint-stones which flash when struck were supposed 
to be these fragments, and gave rise to the stone 
worship so frequent in the old world; and how, 
finally, the prevalent myth of a king of serpents 
crowned with a glittering stone or wearing a horn is 
but another type of the lightning. 1 Without accept- 

1 Schwarz, Der Ursprung der Mythologie dargelegt an Griecli- 
ischer und Deutscher Sage : Berlin, 1860, passim. 



118 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT 



ing unreservedly all these conclusions, I shall show 
how correct they are in the main when applied to 
the myths of the New World, and thereby illustrate 
how the red race is of one blood and one faith with 
our own remote ancestors in heathen Europe and 
Central Asia. 

It asks no elaborate effort of the imagination to 
liken the lightning to a serpent. It does not require 
any remarkable acuteness to guess the conundrum 
of Schiller : — 

" Unter alien Schlangen ist erne 

Auf Erden nicht gezeugt, 
Mit der an Schnelle keine, 
An AYuth sich keine vergleicht." 

When Father Buteux was a missionary among the 
Algonkins, in 1637, he asked them their opinion of 
the nature of lightning. " It is an immense serpent," 
they replied, " which the Manito is vomiting forth ; 
you can see the twists and folds that he leaves on the 
trees which he strikes ; and underneath such trees 
we have often found huge snakes." " Here is a novel 
philosophy for you ! " exclaims the Father. 1 So the 
Shawnees called the thunder "the hissing of the 
great snake ; " 2 and Tlaloc, the Toltec thunder god, 
held in his hand a serpent of gold to represent the 

1 Rel de la Nouv. France : An 1637, p. 53. Later versions 
of this belief are given by the Rev. Peter Jones, Hist, of the Ojeb- 
way Indians, pp. 86, 87 ; in them the thunder bird eats the 
serpents. 

2 Sagen der Nord-Amer. Indianer, p. 21. This is a Ger- 
man translation of part of Jones's Legends of the N. Am. Inds. : 
London, 1820. Their value as mythological material is very 
small. 



THE LIGHTNING SERPENT. 



119 



lightning. 1 For this reason the Caribs spoke of the 
god of the thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling 
in the fruit forests, 2 and in the Quiche legends other 
names for Hurakari, the hurricane or thunder-storm, 
are the Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, refer- 
ring to the lightning. 3 

Among the Hurons, in 1648, the Jesuits found a 
legend current that there existed somewhere a mon- 
ster serpent called Onniont, who wore on his head a 
horn that pierced rocks, trees, hills, in short, every- 
thing he encountered. Whoever could get a piece of 
this horn was a fortunate man, for it was a sovereign 
charm and bringer of good luck. The Hurons con- 
fessed that none of them had had the good hap to find 
the monster and break his horn, nor indeed had they 
any idea of his whereabouts ; but their neighbors, 
the AJgonkins, furnished them at times small frag- 
ments for a large consideration. 4 Clearly the myth 
had been taught them for venal purposes by their 
trafficking visitors. Now among the Algonkins, the 
Shawnee tribe did more than all others combined to 
introduce and carry about religious legends and 
ceremonies. From the earliest times they seem to 
have had peculiar aptitude for the ecstasies, deceits, 
and fancies that made up the spiritual life of their 
associates. Their constantly roving life brought them 
in contact with the myths of many nations. And it 
is extremely probable that they first brought the tale 
of the horned serpent from the Creeks and Cherokees. 

1 Torquemada, Mnnarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 37. 

2 De la Borde, Relation des Caraibes, p. 7. 

3 Le Licre Sacre des Quiches, p. 3. 

4 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75. 



120 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



It figured extensively in the legends of both these 
tribes. 

The latter related that once upon a time among 
the glens of their mountains dwelt the prince of 
rattlesnakes. Obedient subjects guarded his palace, 
and on his head glittered in place of a crown a gem 
of marvellous magic virtues. Many warriors and 
magicians tried to get possession of this precious talis- 
man, but were destroyed by the poisoned fangs of its 
defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest 
hit upon the bright idea of encasing himself in leather, 
and by this device marched unharmed through the 
hissing and snapping court, tore off the shining jewel, 
and bore it in triumph to his nation. They preserved 
it with religious care, brought it forth on state occa- 
sions with solemn ceremony, and about the middle 
of the last century, when Captain Timberlake pene- 
trated to their towns, told him its origin. 1 

The charm which the Creeks presented their young 
men when they set out on the war path was of very 
similar character. It was composed of the bones of 
the panther and the horn of the fabulous horned 
snake. According to a legend taken down by an 
unimpeachable authority toward the close of the last 
century, the great snake dwelt in the waters ; the old 
people went to the brink and sang the sacred songs. 
The monster rose to the surface. The sao^es recom- 
menced the mystic chants. He rose a little out of 
the water. Again they repeated the songs. This 
time he showed his horns and they cut one off. Still 

1 Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timherlalce . p. 48. London, 1765. 
This little book gives an account of the Cherokees at an earlier 
date than is elsewhere found. 



THE SERPENT KING. 



121 



a fourth time did they sing, and as he rose to listen 
cut of! the remaining horn. A fragment of these in 
the " war physic " protected from inimical arrows 
and gave success in the conflict. 1 

But we must not be hasty in assigning historical 
grounds for the prevalence of this myth. It recurs 
where no such can be imagined, proving that it is a 
creation of the fancy, produced by similar associations 
of ideas. In the central region of the volcanic 
island of Dominica is a deep vale, wherein, alleged 
the Carib natives, dwelt a monstrous serpent ; " upon 
its head is a very sparkling stone, like a carbuncle, 
which is commonly covered with a thin moving 
skin, like a man's eyelid ; but when he drank and 
sported himself in that deep bottom, it was plainly 
discovered, the rocks about the place receiving a 
wonckous lustre from the fire issuing out of that 
precious crown." 2 This was probably the great ser- 
pent Racumon, brother of Savacon, the elemental 
bird who, according to De La Borcle, these islanders 
believed to be lord of the hurricane and maker of 
the Avinds. 3 

In these myths, which attribute good fortune to the 
horn of the snake, that horn which pierces trees and 
rocks, which rises from the waters, which glitters as a 
gem, which descends from the ravines of the moun- 
tains, we shall not overstep the bounds of prudent rea- 
soning if we see the thunderbolt, sign of the fructify- 
ing rain, symbol of the strength of the lightning, horn 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80. 

2 Blomes, State of His Majestie's Territories in America, p. 
73. London, 1687. 

3 B.elation des Caraibes, p. 7. Paris, 1674. 



122 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



of the heavenly serpent. They are strictly meteoro- 
logical in their meaning. And when in later Algon- 
kin tradition the hero Michabo appears in conflict with 
the shining prince of serpents who lives in the lake 
and floods the earth with its waters, and destroys the 
reptile with a dart, and further when the conqueror 
clothes himself with the skin of his foe and drives 
the rest of the serpents to the south where in that 
latitude the lightnings are last seen in the autumn ;* 
or when in the traditional history of the Iroquois we 
hear of another great horned serpent rising out of the 
lake and preying upon the people until a similar hero- 
god destroys it with a thunderbolt, 2 we cannot be 
wrong in rejecting any historical or ethical interpre- 
tation, and in construing them as allegories which 
at first represented the atmospheric changes which 
accompany the advancing seasons and the ripen- 
ing harvests. They are narratives conveying under 
agreeable personifications the tidings of that unending 
combat which the Dakotas said is ever waged with 
, varying fortunes by Unktahe against Wauhkeon, the 
God of Waters against the Thunder Bird. 3 They are 
the same stories which in the old world have been elab- 
orated into the struggles of Ormuzd and Ahriman, 

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 179 sq. ; compare ii, p. 
117. 

2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 159 ; Cusic, Trad. Hist, 
of the Six Nations, pt. ii. 

3 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, pp. 161, 212. In this 
explanation I depart from Prof. Schwarz, who has collected 
various legends almost identical w ith these of the Indians (with 
which he was not acquainted), and interpreted the precious 
crown or horn to be the summer sun, brought forth by the early 
vernal lightning. Ursprung der Mythologie, p. 27, note. 



THE WAR PHYSIC. 



123 



of Thor and Midgard, of St George and the Dragon, 
and a thousand others. 

Yet it were but a narrow theory of natural religion 
that allowed no other meaning to these myths. Many 
another elemental warfare is being waged around us, 
and applications as various as nature herself lie in 
these primitive creations of the human fancy. Let 
it only be remembered that there was never any moral, 
never any historical purport in them in the infancy 
of religious life. 

In snake charming as a proof of proficiency in 
magic, and in the symbol of the lightning, which 
brings both fire and water, which in its might con- 
trols victory in war, and in its frequency plenteous 
crops at home, lies the secret of the serpent symbol. 
As the " war physic " among the tribes of the United 
States was a fragment of a serpent, and as thus sig- 
nifying his incomparable skill in war the Iroquois 
represent their mythical king Atatarho clothed in noth- 
ing but black snakes, so that when he wished to don a 
neAv suit he simply drove away one set and ordered an- 
other to take their places, 1 so, by a precisely similar 
mental process, the myth of the Nahuas assigns as a 
mother to their war god Huitzilopochtli, Coatlicue, 
the robe of serpents ; her dwelling place Coatepec, 
the hill of serpents ; and at her lying-in say that she 
brought forth a serpent. Her son's image was sur- 
rounded by serpents, his sceptre was in the shape of 
one, his great drum was of serpents' skins, and his 
statue rested on four vermiform caryatides. 

As the symbol of the fertilizing summer showars 



1 Cusic, u. s., pt. ii. 



124 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



the lightning serpent was the god of fruitf illness. 
Born in the atmospheric waters, it was an appropriate 
attribute of the ruler of the winds. But we have 
already seen that the winds were often spoken of as 
great birds. Hence the union of these two emblems 
in such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, Kukulkan, 
all titles of the god of the air in the languages of 
Central America, all signifying the " Bird-serpent." 
Here also we see the solution of that monument 
which has so puzzled American antiquaries, the cross 
at Palenque. It is a tablet on the wall of an altar 
representing a cross surmounted by a bird, its 
lateral arms terminating in profiles of the rattle- 
snake head. The descending arm rests upon a 
skull, possibly that of a serpent, but more probably 
human. The cross I have previously shown was the 
symbol of the four winds, and the bird and serpent 
are simply the rebus of the air god, their ruler. 1 Quet- 
zalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, the rattlesnake, was 
no less intimately associated with serpents than with 
birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico re- 
presented the jaws of one of these reptiles, and he 
finally disappeared in the province of Coatzacoalco, 
the hiding-place of the serpent, sailing towards the 

1 This remarkable relic has been the subject of a long and 
able article in the Revue Americaine (torn. ii. p. 69), by the ven- 
erable traveller De Waldeck. Like myself— and I had not seen 
his opinion until after the above was written — he explains the 
cruciform design as indicating the four cardinal points, but of- 
fers the explanation merely as a suggestion, and without refer- 
ring to these symbols as they appear in so many other connections. 
See also, Allen, Analysis of the Life Form in Art, pp. 37 (fig. 85) 
and 67. 



THE GOD OF RICHES. 



125 



east in a bark of serpents' skins. All this refers to 
his power over the lightning serpent. 

He was also said to be the god of riches and the 
patron consequently of merchants. For with the 
summer lightning come the harvest and the ripening 
fruits, come riches and traffic. Moreover " the golden 
color of the liquid fire," as Lucretius expresses it, 
naturally led where this metal was known, to its be- 
ing deemed the product of the lightning. Thus orig- 
inated many of those tales of a dragon who watches 
a treasure in the earth, and of a serpent who is the 
dispenser of riches, such as were found among the 
Greeks and ancient Germans. 1 So it was in Peru 
where the god of riches was worshipped under the 
image of a rattlesnake horned and hairy, with a tail 
of gold. 4 Ifc was said to have descended from the 
heavens in the sight of all the people, and to have 
been seen by the whole army of the Inca. 2 Whether 
it was in reference to it, or as emblems of their prow- 
ess, that the Incas themselves chose as their arms 
two serpents with their tails interlaced, is uncertain ; 
possibly one for each of these significations. 

Because the rattlesnake, the lightning serpent, is 
thus connected with the food of man, and itself seems 
never to die but annually to renew its youth, the 
Algonkins called it "grandfather" and u king of 
snakes;" they feared to injure it; they believed it 

1 Schwarz, Ursprung der Mythologie, pp. 62 sqq. 

2 1 ' I have examined many Indians in reference to these de- 
tails," says the narrator, an Augustin monk writing in 1554, 
" and they have all confirmed them as eye-witnesses " (Lettre sur 
les Superstitions du Perou, p. 106, ed. Ternaux-Compans. This 
document is very valuable). 



126 SYMBOLS OF THE BIRD AND THE SERPENT. 



could grant prosperous breezes, or raise disastrous 
tempests; crowned with the lunar crescent it was the 
constant symbol of life in their picture writing ; and 
in the meda signs the mythical grandmother of man- 
kind me suk ~knm me go Jcwa was indifferently repre- 
sented by an old woman or a serpent. 1 For like 
reasons Cihuacoatl, the Serpent Woman, in the 
myths of the Xahuas was also called Tonantzin, our 
mother. 2 

The prominence of the rattlesnake as a peculiarly 
American symbol indicated by these references has 
received most ingenious and abundant illustration 
from indigenous art through the studies of Dr. Harri- 
son Allen. Commencing with the suggestive remark 
that the serpent is the " only animal facile to the 
purposes of the pattern maker," he has traced its vari- 
ant forms in the picture writing, the phonetic signs 
and the architectural ornaments of the red race, and 
shown the remarkable preference they had for the 
line representing the profile of the head of the rattle- 
snake, J:o the radical of which he has applied the term 
" the Crotalean curve." 3 

The serpent symbol in America has, however, met 
with frequent misinterpretation. It had such an 
ominous significance in Christian art, and one which 
chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the 
early missionaries — " the gods of the heathens 
are devils " — that wherever they saw a carving or 
picture of a serpent they at once recognized the 

1 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 355; Henry, Travels, p. 176. 

2 Torquemada, Mona?'quia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 31. 

3 An Analysis of 4i The Life Form in Art." Phila., 1875. 



MEANING OF THE SERPENT SYMBOL. 127 



sign manual of the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed 
the fact in their note-books as proof positive of their 
cherished theory. After going over the whole ground, 
I am convinced that none of the tribes of the red race 
attached to this symbol any ethical significance what- 
ever, and that as employed to express atmospheric 
phenomena, and the recognition of divinity in natural 
occurrences, it far more frequently typified what was 
favorable and agreeable than the reverse. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THE THUNDER- 
STORM, AND THE RELIGION OF SEX. 

Water the oldest element.— Its use in purification.— Holy water.— The 
Rite of Baptism.— The Water of Life.— Its symbols.— The Vase.— The 
Moon.— The latter the goddess of love and agriculture, but also of 
sickness, night, and pain.— Often represented by a dog.— Fire worship 
under the form of Sun worship. — The perpetual fire.— The new fire.— 
Burning the dead. — The worship of the passions. — The religion of 
Sex in America. — Synthesis of the worship of Fire, Water, and the 
Winds in the Thuxder-storm, personified as Haokah, Tupa, Catequil, 
Contici, Heno, Tlaloc, Mixcoatl, and other deities, many of them 
triune. 

THE primitive man was a brute in everything but 
the susceptibility to culture ; the chief market 
of his time was to sleep, fight, and feed ; his bodily 
comfort alone had any importance in his eyes; and 
his gods were nothing, unless they touched him here. 
Cold, hunger, thirst, these Avere the hounds that 
were ever on his track ; these were the fell powers 
he saw constantly snatching away his fellows, con- 
stantly aiming their invisible shafts at himself. Fire, 
food, and water were the gods that fought on his side ; 
they were the chief figures in his pantheon, his kind- 
liest, perhaps his earliest, divinities. 

With a nearly unanimous voice mythologies assign 
the priority to water. It was the first of all things, 
the parent of all things. Even the gods themselves 
were born of water, said the Greeks and the Aztecs. 



THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENT. 



129 



' Cosmogonies reach no further than the primeval 
ocean that rolled its shoreless waves through a time- 
less night. 

" Omnia pontus erant, deerant quoque litora ponto." 

Earth, sun, stars, lay concealed in its fathomless 
abysses. "All of us," ran the Mexican baptismal 
formula, " are children of Chalchihuitlycue, Goddess 
of Water," and the like was said by the Peruvians 
of Mama Cocha, by the Botocudos of Taru, by the 
natives of Darien of Dobayba, by the Iroquois of 
Ataensic — all of them mothers of mankind, all per- 
sonifications of water. 

How account for such unanimity? Not by sup- 
posing some ancient intercourse between remote 
tribes, but by the uses of water as the originator and 
supporter, the essential prerequisite of life. Leaving 
aside the analogy presented by the motherly waters 
which nourish the unborn child, nor emphasizing how 
indispensable it is as a beverage, the many offices this 
element performs in nature lead easily to the supposi- 
tion that it must have preceded all else. By quench- 
ing thirst, it quickens life ; as the dew and the rain 
it feeds the plant, and when withheld the seed 
perishes in the ground, and forests and flowers alike 
wither away; as the fountain, the river, and the lake, 
it enriches the valley, offers safe retreats, and provides 
store of fishes ; as the ocean, it presents the most 
fitting type of the infinite. It cleanses, it purifies ; 
it produces, it preserves. " Bodies, unless dissolved, 
cannot act," is a maxim of the earliest chemistry. 
Very plausibly, therefore, was it assumed as the 
source of all things. 

The adoration of streams, springs, and lakes, or 

9 



130 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



rather of the spirits their rulers, prevailed every- 
where ; sometimes avowedly because they provided 
food, as was the case with the Moxos, who called 
themselves children of the lake or river on which 
their village was, and were afraid to migrate lest their 
parent should be vexed ; 1 sometimes because they 
were the means of irrigation, as in Peru, or on more 
general mythical grounds. A grove by a fountain is 
in all nature worship the ready-made shrine of the 
sylphs who live in its limpid waves and chatter mys- 
teriously in its shallows. On such a spot in our Gulf 
States one rarely fails to find the sacrificial mound of 
the ancient inhabitants, and on such the natives of 
Central America were wont to erect their altars 
(Ximenes). Lakes are the natural centres of civiliza- 
tion. Like the lacustrine villages which the Swiss 
erected in ante-historic times, like ancient Venice, the 
city of Mexico was first built on piles in a lake, and 
for the same reason — protection from attack. Security 
once obtained, growth and power followed. Thus we 
can trace the earliest rays of Aztec civilization rising 
from lake Tezcuco, of the Peruvian from Lake Titi- 
caca, of the Muysca from Lake Guatavita. These 
are the centres of legendary cycles. Their waters 
were hallowed by venerable reminiscences. From 
the depths of Titicaca rose Viracocha, mythical 
civilizer of Peru. Guatavita was the bourne of many 
a foot-sore pilgrim in the ancient empire of the Zac. 
Once a year the high priest poured the collective 
offerings of the multitude into its waves, and anointed 
with oils and glittering with gold dust, dived deep in 



1 A. D'Orbigny, U Homme Amerieain, i. p. 240: 



HOLY WATER. 



131 



its midst, professing to hold communion with the 
goddess who there had her home. 1 

Not only does the life of man depend on water, 
but his well-being also. As an ablution it invigo- 
rates him bodily and mentally. No institution was 
in higher honor among the North American Indians 
than the sweat-bath followed by the cold douche. It 
was popular not only as a remedy in every and any 
disease, but as a preliminary to a council or an im- 
portant transaction. Its real value in cold climates 
is proven by the -sustained fondness for the Russian 
bath in the north of Europe. The Indians, however, 
with their usual superstition attributed its good 
effects to some iB^sterious healing power in water 
itself. Therefore, when the patient was not able to 
undergo the usual process, or when his medical at- 
tendant was above the vulgar and routine practice 
of his profession, it was administered on the infini- 
tesimal system. The quack muttered a formula over 
a gourd filled from a neighboring spring and sprinkled 
it on his patient, or washed the diseased part, or 
sucked out the evil spirit and blew it into a bowl of 
water, and then scattered the liquid on the fire or 
earth. 2 At appointed seasons the Tupi priests as- 
sembled the people, filled large jars with water, spoke 
certain words over them, and dipping in palm branches 
sprinkled their hearers. 3 

1 Bivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, 162, after J. 
Acosta. 

2 ^Narrative of Oceola Nikkanoche, Prince of Econchatti, p. 
141 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 650. 

3 Le Pfcre Ives d'Evreux, Histoire de Maragnan> p. 306. 



132 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

The use of such " holy water " astonished the 
Romanist missionaries, and they at once detected 
Satan parodying the Scriptures. But their astonish- 
ment rose to horror when they discovered among 
various nations a rite of baptism of appalling simi- 
h>ritv to their own, connected with the imposing of 
a name, done avowedly for the purpose of freeing 
from inherent sin, believed to produce a regeneration 
of the spiritual nature, nay, in more than one in- 
stance called by an indigenous word signifying " to 
be born again." 1 Such a rite was of immemorial 
antiquity among the Cherokees, Aztecs, Mayas, and 
Peruvians. Had the missionaries remembered that 
it was practised in Asia with all these meanings long' 
before it was chosen as the sio;n of the new cove- 
nant, they need have invoked neither Satan nor Saint 
Thomas to explain its presence in America. 

As corporeal is near akin to spiritual pollution, 
and cleanliness to godliness, ablution preparatory to 
engaging in religious acts came early to have an 
emblematic as well as a real significance. The 
water freed the soul from sin as it did the skin from 
stain. We should come to God with clean hands 
and a clean heart. As Pilate washed his hands 
before the multitude to indicate that he would not 
accept the moral responsibility of their acts, so from 
a similar motive a Natchez chief, who had been per- 
suaded against his sense of duty not to sacrifice him- 
self on the pyre of his ruler, took clean water, washed 
his hands, and threw it upon live coals. 2 x When an 

1 The term in Maya is caput zihil, corresponding exactly to 
the Latin renasci. to be re-born, Landa, Ftel.de Yucatan, p. 111. 

2 Dumont, Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. p. 233. 



THE RITE OF BAPTISM. 



133 



ancient Peruvian had laid bare his guilt by con- 
fession, he bathed himself in a neighboring river and 
repeated this formula : — 

" O thou River, receive the sins I have this day- 
confessed unto the Sun, carry them down to the sea, 
and let them never more appear." 1 

The Navajo who has been deputed to carry a dead 
body to burial, holds himself unclean until he has 
thoroughly washed himself in water prepared for the 
purpose by certain ceremonies. 2 When a Bri-Bri has 
touched a corpse or a pregnant woman he takes a cala- 
bash of water to purify himself. 3 A bath was an 
indispensable step in the mysteries of Mithras, the 
initiation at Eleusis, the mecla worship of the Algon- 
kins, the Busk of the Creeks, the ceremonials of 
religion everywhere. Baptism was at first always 
immersion. Ifc was a bath meant to solemnize the 
reception of the child into the guild of mankind, 
drawn from the prior custom of ablution at any 
solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, 
bodily and spiritual. As certainly as there is a law 
of conscience, as certainly as our actions fall short of 
our volitions, so certainly is man painfully aware of 
various imperfections and shortcomings. What he 
feels he attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free 
themselves from this sense of guilt, the Delawares 
used an emetic (Loskiel), the Cherokees a potion 
cooked up by an order of female warriors (Timber- 
lake), the Takahlies of Washington Territory, the 

1 Acosta, Hist, of the New World, lib. v. cap. 25. 

2 Senate Report on Condition of Indian Tribes, p. 358. Wash- 
ington, 1867. 

3 Gabb, Ind. Tribes of Costa Rica, p. 505. 



131 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, auricular confession. 
Formulize these feelings and we have the dogmas of 
" original sin," and of " spiritual regeneration." The 
order of baptism among the Aztecs commenced, " O 
child, receive the water of the Loi'd of the world, 
which is our life ; it is to wash and to purify ; may 
these drops remove the sin which was given to thee 
before the creation of the world, since all of us are 
under its power ; " and concluded, " Now he liveth 
anew and is born anew, now is he purified and 
cleansed, now our mother the Water again bringeth 
him into the world." 1 

A name was then assigned to the child, usually 
that of some ancestor, who it was supposed would 
thus be induced to exercise a kindly supervision over 
the little one's future. In after life should the per- 
son desire admittance to a superior class of the popu- 
lation and had the wealth to purchase it — for here as 
in more enlightened lands nobility was a matter of 
mone}' — he underwent a second baptism and received 
another name, but still ostensibly from the goddess 
of water. 2 

In Peru the child was immersed in the fluid, the 
priest exorcised the evil and bade it enter the water, 
which was then buried in the ground. 3 Ia either 
country sprinkling could take the place of immersion. 
The Cherokees believe that unless the rite is punctu- 
ally performed when the child is three days old, it 
will inevitably die. 4 

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. vi. cap. 37. 

2 Ternaux-Compans, Pieces rel. a la Conq. du Mexique, p. 233. 

3 Yelasco, Hist, de la Royaume de Quito, p. 106, and others. 

4 Whipple, Rep. on the Indian Tribes, p. 35. I am not sure 



THE WATER OF LIFE. 



135 



As thus curative and preservative, it was imagined 
that there was water of which whoever should drink 
would not die, but live forever. I have already 
alluded to the Fountain of Youth, supposed long 
before Columbus saw the surf of San Salvador to exist 
in the Bahama Islands or Florida. It seems to have 
lingered long on that peninsula. Not many years ago, 
Coacooche, a Seminole chieftain, related a vision 
which had nerved him to a desperate escape from the 
Castle of St. Augustine. " In my dream," said he, 
" I visited the happy hunting grounds and saw my 
twin sister, long since gone. She offered me a cup 
of pure water, whicii she said came from the spring 
of the Great Spirit, and if I should drink of it, I should 
return and live with her forever." 1 Some such mys- 

that this practice was of native growth to the Cherokees. This 
people had many customs and traditions strangely similar to 
those of Christians and Jews. Their cosmogony is a paraphrase 
of that of Genesis (Payne's MSS.) ; the number seven is as 
sacred with them as it was with the Chaldeans (Whipple, u. s.); 
and they have improved and increased by contact with the whites. 
Significant in this connection is the remark of Bartram, who 
visited them in 1773, that some of their females were " nearly 
as fair and blooming as European women," and generally that 
their complexion was lighter than their neighbors {Travels, p. 
485). Two explanations of these facts may be suggested. 
Payne says they had villages near Savannah and the English 
in Carolina. More probably they derived their peculiarities 
from the Spaniards of Florida. Mr. Shea is of opinion that mis- 
sions were established among them as early as 1566 and 1643 
(Hist, of Catholic Missions in the U. S., pp. 58, 73). Certainly in 
the latter half of the seventeenth century the Spaniards were 
prosecuting mining operations in their territory (See Am. Hist. 
Mag., x. p. 137). 

1 Sprague, Hist, of the Florida War, p. 328. 



136 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



tical respect for the element, rather than as a mere 
outfit for his spirit home, probably induced the earlier 
tribes of the same territory to place the conch-shell 
which the deceased had used for a cup conspicu- 
ously on his grave, 1 and the Mexicans and Peru- 
vians to inter a vase filled with water with the corpse, 
or to sprinkle it with the liquid, baptizing it, as it 
were, into its new associations. 2 It was an emblem 
of the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the 
dead, a symbol of the resurrection which is in store 
for those who have gone down to the grave. 

The vase or the gourd as a symbol of water, the 
source and preserver of life, is a conspicuous figure 
in the myths of ancient America. As Akbal or Hue- 
comitl, the great or original vase, in Aztec and Maya 
legends it plays important parts in the drama of crea- 
tion ; as Tici (Ticcu) in Peru it is the symbol of the 
rains, and as a gourd it is often mentioned by the 
Caribs and Tupis as the parent of the atmospheric 
waters. 

As the Moon is associated with the dampness and 
dews of night, an ancient and wide-spread myth 
identified her with the Goddess of Water. Moreover 
in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the 
common people the world over persist in attributing 
to her a marked influence on the rains. Whether 
false or true, this familiar opinion is of great antiquity, 
and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were 
all, in the words of an old author, " great observers 

1 Basanier, Histoire Notable de la Floride, p. 10. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espafia, lib. iii. app. cap. i. ; 
Meyen, Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru, p. 29. 



THE MOON AS GODDESS OF WATER. 137 

of the weather by the moon." 1 They looked upon her 
not only as forewarning them by her appearance of 
the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their 
actual cause. 

Isis, her Egyptian title, literalty means moisture ; 
Ataeusic, whom the Hurons said was the moon, is 
derived from the word for water ; in Hidatsa midi 
is moon, mi'di water, and Citatli and Atl, moon and 
water, are constantly confounded in Aztec theology. 
Their attributes were strikingly alike. They were 
both the mythical mothers of the race, and both 
protect women in child-birth, the babe in the cradle, 
the husbandman in the field, and the youth and 
maiden in their tender affections. As the transfer of 
legends was nearly always from the water to its lunar 
goddess, by bringing them in at this point their true 
meaning will not fail to be apparent. 

"We must ever bear in mind that the course of my- 
thology is from many gods toward one, that it is a 
synthesis, not an analysis, and that in this process 
the tendency is to blend in one the traits and stories 
of originally separate divinities. As has justly been 
observed by the Mexican antiquarian Gama : " It was 
a common trait among the Indians to worship many 
gods under the figure of one, principally those whose 
activities lay in the same direction, or those in some 
way related among themselves." 2 

The time of full moon was chosen both in Mexico 
and Peru to celebrate the festival of the deities of 

1 Gabriel Thomas, Hist, of West New Jersey, p. 6. London, 
1698. 

2 Gama, Des, de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 36. 



138 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



water, the patrons of agriculture, 1 and very generally 
the ceremonies connected with the crops were regu- 
lated by her phases. The Nicaraguans said that the 
god of rains, Quiateot, rose in the east, 2 thus hinting 
how this connection originated. At a lunar eclipse 
the Orinoco Indians seized their hoes and labored 
with exemplary vigor on their growing corn, saying 
the moon was veiling herself in anger at their habit- 
ual laziness ; 3 and a description ot the New Nether- 
lands, written about 1650, remarks that the savages 
of that land " ascribe great influence to the moon 
over crops." 4 This venerable superstition, common 
to all races, still lingers among our own farmers, 
many of whom continue to observe " the signs of the 
moon" in sowing grain, setting out trees, cutting 
timber, and other rural avocations. 

As representing water, the universal mother, the 
moon was the protectress of women in child-birth, 
the goddess of love and babes, the patroness of 
marriage. To her the mother called in travail, 
whether by the name of " Diana, diva triformis " in 
pagan Rome, by that of Mama Quilla in Peru, or of 
Meztli in Anahuac. Under the title of Yohualticitl, 
the Lady of Night, she was also in this latter coun- 
try the guardian of babes, and as Teczistecatl, the 
cause of generation. 5 

1 Garcia, Or. delos Indios, p. 109. 

2 Oviedo, Rel. de la Prov. de Nicaragua, p. 41. The name is 
a corruption of the Aztec Quiauhteotl, Rain-God. 

3 Gumilla, Hist, del Orinoco, ii. cap. 23. 

4 Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 130. 

5 Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, ii. p. 41 ; Gallatin, Trans. 
Am. Ethnol. Soc, i. p. 343. 



THE MOON AS GODDESS OF NIGHT. 139 

Very different is another aspect of the moon god- 
dess, and well might the Mexicans paint her with 
two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests 
and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and 
terrific phase. She is also the goddess of the night, 
the dampness, and the cold ; she engenders the mias- 
matic poisons that rack our bones ; she conceals in 
her mantle the foe who takes us unawares ; she rules 
those vague shapes which fright us in the dim light ; 
the causeless sounds of night, or its more oppressive 
silence are familiar to her ; she it is who sends dreams 
wherein gods and deyils have their sport with man, 
and slumber, the twin brother of death. In the oc- 
cult philosophy of the middle ages she was " Chief 
over the Night, Darkness, Rest, Death, and the 
Waters ;" 1 in the language of the Algonkins, her 
name is identical with the words for night, death, 
cold, sleep, and water. 2 

She is the evil minded woman who thus brings 
diseases upon men, who at the outset introduced pain 
and death in the world — our common mother, yet 

1 Adrian Van Helmont, WorJce.s, p. 142, fol. London, 1662. 

2 The moon is nipa, or nipaz ; nipa, I sleep; nipawi, night; nip, 
I die; nepua, dead; nipanoue, cold. This odd relationship was 
first pointed out by Volney (Duponceau, Langues de VAmerique 
du Nord, p. 317). But the kinship of these words to that for 
water, nip, nipi, nepi, has not before been noticed. This proves 
the association of ideas on which I lay so much stress in my- 
thology. A somewhat similar relationship exists in the Aztec 
and cognate languages, miqui, to die, micqui dead, mictlan, the 
realm of death, te-miqui, to dream, cec-miqui, to freeze. Would 
it be going too far to connect these with metzli moon ? (See 
Buschmann, Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im Nordlichen Mexi- 
co, p. 80.) 



110 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 

the cruel cause of our present woes. Sometimes 
it is the moon, sometimes water, of whom this is 
said. 

" We are all of us under the power of evil and 
sin, because we are children of the Water," says the 
Mexican baptismal formula. That Unktahe, spirit of 
water, is the master of dreams and witchcraft, is the 
belief of the Dakotas. 1 A female spirit, wife of the 
great manito whose heart is the sun, the . ancient 
Algonkins believed brought death and disease to the 
race ; " it is she who kills men, otherwise they would 
never die ; she eats their flesh and knaws their vitals, 
till they fall away and miserably perish." 2 Who is 
this woman? In the legend of the Muyscas it is 
Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and 
flooded the earth out of spite. 3 Her reputation was 
notoriously bad. Did she appear in a dream to a Sauk 
warrior, he dressed himself and served as a woman 
to avoid her blows. 4 The Brazilian mother carefully 
shielded her infant from the lunar rays, believing 
that they would produce sickness ; 5 the hunting tribes 
of our own country will not sleep in its light, nor 
leave their game exposed to its action. We ourselves 
have not outgrown such words as lunatic, moon- 
struck, and the like. Where did we get these ideas ? 
The phi] osophical historian of medicine, Kurt Spren- 
gel, traces them to the primitive and popular medi- 
cal theories of ancient Egypt, in accordance with 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. T ribes, vol. iii. p. 485. 

2 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 16. 

3 Humboldt, Vues des Cordelleres, p. 21. 

4 Keating, Narrative, i. p. 216, in AYaitz. 

6 Spix and Martius, Travels in Brazil, ii. p. 247. 



THE MOON AS GODDESS OF SICKNESS. 141 



which all maladies were the effects of the anger of 
the goddess Isis, the Moisture, the Moon. 1 

We have here the key to many myths. Take that of 
Centeotl, the Aztec goddess of Maize. She was said 
at times to appear as a woman of surpassing beauty, 
and allure some unfortunate to her embraces, des- 
tined to pay with his life for his brief moments of 
pleasure. Even to see her in this shape was a fatal 
omen. She was also said to belong to a class of gods 
whose home was in the west, and who produced sick- 
ness and pains. 2 Here we see the evil aspect of 
the moon reflected on another goddess, who was at 
first solely the patroness of agriculture. 

As the goddess of sickness, it was supposed that 
persons afflicted with certain diseases had been set , 
apart by the moon for her peculiar service. These 
diseases were those of a humoral type, especially such 
as are characterized by issues and ulcers. As in 
Hebrew the word accursed is derived from a root 
meaning consecrated to Grod, so in the Aztec, Quiche, 
and other tongues, the word for leprous, eczematous, or 
syphilitic, means also divine. This bizarre change of 
meaning is illustrated in a very ancient myth of their 
family. It is said that in the absence of the sun all 
mankind lingered in darkness. Nothing but a hu- 
man sacrifice could hasten his arrival. Then Metzli, 
the moon, led forth one Nanahuatl, the leprous, and 
building a pyre, the victim threw himself in. its midst. 
Straightway Metzli followed his example, and as she 
disappeared in the bright flames the sun rose over the 

1 Hist, de la Medecine, i. p. 34. 

2 Garaa, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., ii. pp. 100-102. Com- 
pare Sabagun, Hist, de la Nueva Esjmna, lib. i. cap. vi. 



112 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



horizon. 1 Is not this a reference to the kindling rays 
of the aurora, in which the dank and baleful nidit is 
sacrificed, and in whose light the moon presently 
fades away, and the sun comes forth ? 

Another reaction in the mythological laboratory is 
here disclosed. As the good qualities of water were 
attributed to the goddess of night, sleep, and death, 
so her malevolent traits were in turn reflected back 
on this element. Other thoughts aided the transfer. 
In primitive geography the Ocean Stream coils its 
infinite folds around the speck of land we inhabit, 
biding its time to swallow it wholly. Unwillingly 
did it yield the earth from its bosom, daily does it 
steal it away piece by piece. Every evening it hides 
the light in its depths, and Night and the Waters 
resume their ancient sway. The word for ocean 
(mare} in the Latin tongue means by derivation a 
desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as " the barren 
brine." Water is a treacherous element. Man treads 
boldly on the solid earth, but the rivers and lakes 
constantly strive to swallow those who venture within 
their reach. As streams run in tortuous channels, 
and as rains accompany the lightning serpent, this 
animal was occasionally the symbol of the waters in 
their dangerous manifestations. The Huron magi- 

1 Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, Hist, du Mcxique i. p. 183. 
Gama and others translate Nanahuatl by el buboso. Brassenr by 
le syphilitique, and the latter founds certain medical speculations 
on the word. It is entirely unnecessary to say to a surgeon that 
it could not possibly have had the latter meaning, inasmuch as 
the diagnosis between secondary or tertiary syphilis and other 
similar diseases was unknown. That it is so employed now is 
nothing to the purpose. The same or a similar myth was found 
in Central America and on the Island of Haiti. 



DOGS AS SYMBOLS OF THE MOON. 



143 



cians fabled that in the lakes and rivers dwelt one of 
vast size called Angont, who sent sickness, death, and 
other mishaps, and the least mite of whose flesh was 
a deadly poison. They added — and this was the 
point of the tale — that they always kept on hand por- 
tions of the monster for the benefit of any who 
opposed their designs. 1 ' The legends of the Algon- 
kins mention a rivalry between Michabo, creator of 
the earth, and the Spirit of the Waters, who was un- 
friendly to the project. 2 In later tales this antag- 
onism becomes more .and more pronounced, and bor- 
rows an ethical significance which it did not have at 
first. Taking, however, American religions as a 
whole, water is far more frequently represented as pro- 
ducing beneficent effects than the reverse. 

Dogs were supposed to stand in some peculiar rela- 
tion to the moon, probably because they howl at it 
and run at night, uncanny practices which have cost 
them dear in reputation. The custom prevailed 
among tribes so widely asunder as Peruvians, Tupis, 
Creeks, Iroquois, Algonkins, and Greenland Eskimos 
to thrash the curs most soundly during an eclipse. 3 
The Creeks explained this by saying that the big dog 
was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the 
little ones they could make him desist. What the 
big dog was they were not prepared to say. We 

1 Rel de la Nouv. France, 1648, p. 75. 

2 Charlevoix is in error when he identifies Michabo with the 
Spirit of Waters, and may be corrected from his own state- 
ments elsewhere. Compare his Journal Historique, pp. 281 and 
344 ; ed, Paris, 1740. 

3 Bradford, American Antiquities, p. 333 ; Martius, Von dem 
Rechtszustande unter den Ureinwolinern Brasiliens, p. 32 ; School- 
craft, Lid. Tribes, i. p. 271. 



1U MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



know. It was the night goddess, represented by the 
dog, who was thus shrouding the world at midday. 
The ancient Eomans sacrificed dogs to Hecate and 
Diana ; in Egypt they were sacred to Isis, and thus as 
traditionally connected with night and its terrors, 
the Prince of Darkness, in the superstition of the mid- 
dle ages, preferably appeared under the form of a cur, 
as that famous poodle which accompanied Cornelius 
Agrippa, or that which grew to such enormous size 
behind the stove of Dr. Faustus. In a better sense, 
they represented the more agreeable characteristics 
of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most fecund of 
Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure, 
and of childbirth, was likewise called Itzcuinan, 
which, literally translated, is bitch-mother. This 
strange and to us so repugnant title for a goddess 
was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his 
wars the Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the 
province of Huanca, he found its inhabitants had in- 
stalled in their temples the figure of a dog as their 
highest deity. They were accustomed also to select 
one as his living representative, to pray to it and 
offer it sacrifice, and when well fattened, to serve it 
up with solemn ceremonies at a great feast, eating 
their god snbstantialiter. The priests in this province 
summoned their attendants to the temples by blowing 
through an instrument fashioned from a dog's skull. 1 
This canine canonization explains why in some parts 
of Peru a priest was called by way of honor allco, 
dog I 2 And why in many tombs both there and in 
Mexico their skeletons are found carefully interred 

1 La Vega, H'ist. des Incas, liv. xi. cap. 9. 

2 Lett, sur les Superstitions da Perou, p. 111. 



DOGS AS SYMBOLS OF THE MOON. 



145 



with the human remains. Many tribes on the Pa- 
cific coast united in the adoration of a wild species, 
the coyote, the canis latrans of naturalists. The 
Shoshonees of New Mexico call it their progenitor, 1 
and with the Nahuas it was in such high honor that 
it had a temple of its own, a congregation of priests 
devoted to its service, statues carved in stone, an 
elaborate tomb at death, and is said to be meant by 
the god Chantico, whose audacity caused the destruc- 
tion of the world. The story was that he made a 
sacrifice to the gods without observing a preparatory 
fast, for which he was punished by being changed 
into a dog. He the^i invoked the god of death to 
deliver him, which attempt to evade a just punish- 
ment so enraged the divinities that they immersed 
the world in water. 2 

During a storm on our northern lakes the Indians 
think no offering so likely to appease the angry wa- 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iv. p. 224. Other modern coyote 
myths in Bancroft, Native Races, iii. ch. ii. iii. 

2 Chantico, according to Gama, means "Wolf's Head," 
though I cannot verify this from the vocabularies within my 
reach. He is sometimes called Cohuaxolotl Chantico, the snake- 
servant Chantico, considered by Gama as one, by Torquemada 
as two deities (see Gama, Des. de las dos Piedras, etc., i. p. 12 ; 
ii. p. G6). The English word cantico in the phrase, for instance, 
" to cut a cantico," though an Indian word, is not from this, 
but from the Algonkin Delaware gentkehn, to dance a sacred 
dance. The Dutch describe it as "a religious custom ob- 
served among them before death " (Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. 
p. 63) . William Penn says of the Lenape, " their worship con- 
sists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico," the latter " performed 
by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then 
shouts ; their postures very antic and differing." (Letter to the 
Free Society of Traders, 1683, sec. 21.) 



146 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



ter god who is raising the tempest as a dog. There- 
fore they hasten to tie the feet of one and toss him 
overboard. 1 One meets constantly in their tales and 
superstitions the mysterious powers of the animals, 
and the distinguished actions he has at times per- 
formed bear usually a close parallelism to those at- 
tributed to water and the moon. 

Hunger and thirst were thus alleviated by water. 
Cold remained, and against this fire was the shield. 
It gives man light in darkness and warmth in winter ; 
it shows him his friends and warns him of his foes ; 
the flames point toward heaven and the smoke makes 
the clouds. Around it social life begins. For his 
home and his hearth the savage has but one word, 
and what of tender emotion his breast can feel, is 
linked to the circle that gather around his fire. The 
council fire, the camp fire, and the war fire, are so 
many epochs in his history. By its aid many arts 
become possible, and it is a civilizer in more ways 
than one. In the figurative language of the red race, 
it is constantly used as " an emblem of peace, hap- 
piness, and abundance." 2 To extinguish an enemy's 

1 Charlevoix, Hist. Gen. de la Nouv. France, i. p. 394: 
Paris, 1740. On the different species of dogs indigenous to 
America, see a note of Alex, yon Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, 
i. p. 194. It may be noticed that Chichimec, properly Chichi- 
mecatl, the name of the Aztec tribe who succeeded the ancient 
Toltecs in Mexico, means literally "people of the dog,' 1 and 
probably was derived from some mythological fable connected 
with that animal. 

2 Narr. of the Captiv. of John Tanner, p. 362. From the word 
for tire in many American tongues is "formed the adjective red. 
Thus, Algonkin, skoda, fire, misfcoda, red; Kolosch, lean, fire, 
lean, red; Ugalentz, taTcalc, fire, takah-uete, red; Tahkali, cun, 



SUN WORSHIP. 



147 



fire is to slay him ; to light a visitor's fire is to bid 
him welcome. It may also be terrible and painful. 
The prairie fire, the forest conflagration, the volcano 
and the lightning show that its mood is not always 
kind. Fire worship was closely related to that of 
the. sun, and so much has been said of sun worship 
among the aborigines of America that it is well at 
once to assign it its true position. 

A generation ago it was a fashion very much 
approved to explain all symbols and myths by the 
action of this orb on nature. This short and easy 
method with mythology has, in Carlylian phrase, had 
its bottom pulled from under it in these later times. 
Nowhere has it manifested its inefficiency more pal- 
pably than in America. One writer, while thus ex- 
plaining the religions of the tribes of colder regions, 
and higher latitudes, denies sun worship among the 
natives of hot climates; another asserts that only 

fire, tenil-cun, red ; Quiche, cak, fire, cak, red, etc. From the ad- 
jective red comes often the word for blood, arid in symbolism the 
color red may refer to either of these ideas. It was the royal 
color of the Incas, brothers of the sun, and a llama swathed in 
a red garment was the Peruvian sacrifice to fire (Garcia, Or. 
de los Indios, lib. iv. caps. 16, 19). On the other hand the war 
Quipus, the war wampum, and the war paint were all of this 
hue, boding their sanguinary significance. The word for fire 
in the language of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and neighboring 
tribes puzzles me. It is tcu nda or tinda. This is the Swedish 
word taenda, from whose root comes our tinder. Yet it is found 
in vocabularies as early as 1650, and is universally current to- 
day. It has no resemblance to the word for fire in pure Algon- 
kin. Was it adopted from the Swedes ? Was it introduced by 
wandering Vikings in remote centuries? Or is it only a 
coincidence ? 



US MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



among the latter did it exist at all ; while a third 
lays down the maxim that the religion of the red 
race everywhere " was but a modification of Sun or 
Fire worship." 1 All such sweeping generalizations 
are untrue, and must be so. No one key can open 
all the arcana of symbolism. Man devised means 
as varied as nature herself to express the idea of 
God within him. The sun was but one of these, 
and not the first nor the most inrportant. Fear, 
said the wise Epicurean, first made the gods. Grati- 
tude has no power to make one. The sun with its 
regular course, its kindly warmth, its beneficent 
action, nowise inspires terror, but the reverse. It 
conjures no phantasms to appal the superstitious 
fancy, and its place in primitive mythology is con- 
formably inferior. The myths of the Eskimos and 
northern Athapascas omit its action altogether. The 
Algonkins by no means imagined it the highest god, 
and at most but one of his emblems. 2 That it often 
appears in their prayers is true, but this arose from 
the fact that in many of their dialects, as well as in 
the language of the Mayas and others, the word for 
heaven or sky was identical with that for sun, and 
the former, as I have shown, was the supposed abode 

1 Compare D'Orbigny, L'Homme Americain, i. p. 242 ; Miiller, 

Amer. Urreligionen, p. 51, and Squier, Serpent Symbol in America, 
p. 111. This is a striking instance of the confusion of ideas 
introduced by false systems of study, and also of the consider- 
able misapprehension of American mythology which lias hitherto 
prevailed. 

2 La Hontan, Voy. dans VAmSr. Sept., p. in 127; Rel. Nouv. 
France, 1637, p. 54. 



SUN WORSHIP. 



149 



of deity, " the wigwam of the Great Spirit." 1 The 
alleged sun worship of the Cherokees rests on testi- 
mony modern, doubtful, and unsupported. 2 The 
Blackfeet pray to Natose, the sun. " I have seen 
them do so hundreds of times," writes Gen. J. M. 
Brown ; " yet in every instance when questioned 
they explained that they prayed not to the sun but 
to the Old Man who lives there." In North Amer- 
ica the Natchez alone were avowed worshippers of 
this luminary. Yet they adored it under the name 
Great Fire (ivah sz7), clearly pointing to a prior ado- 
ration of that element. The heliolatry organized 
principally for political ends by the Incas of Peru, 
stands alone in the religions of the red race. Those 
shrewd legislators at an early date officially an- 
nounced that Inti, the sun, their own elder brother, 
was ruler of the cohorts of heaven by like divine 
right that they were of the four corners of the earth. 

This scheme ignominiousky failed, as every attempt 
to fetter the liberty of conscience must and should. 
The later Incas finally indulged publicly in hetero- 
dox remarks, and compromised the matter by acknow- 
ledging a divinity superior even to their brother, the 
sun, as we have seen in a previous chapter. 

Further to illustrate this peculiarity of American 
religions, — for it is an important one — I would refer 

1 Copway, Trad. Hist, of the Ojibway Nation, p. 165. Kesuch 
in Algonkin signifies both sky and sun (Duponceau, Langues 
tie V Amir, du Nord, p. 312). So apparently does kin in the 
Maya. 

2 Payne's manuscripts, compiled within this century, from 
which Mr. Squier drew this assertion, are of doubtful value. 
Tiey are in the Pa. Hist. Soc. Library. 



150 JITTRS OF WATER FIRE, AJsD THUXDERSTORM. 



to the Choctaw sayings regarding fire and the Sim. 
They term the former shaMi miko, " more a chief," and 
TiasTie ittiapa " he who accompanies the sun and 
the sun him." Their language has a 4i war or fire par- 
ticle " with many curious significations, as to wage 
war. On going to war they call for aid to the Sun and 
the fire, his companion. But except as fire they do 
not address the Sun, nor does that body stand in any 
relation to their religious thought other than as a fire. 1 

The myths of creation never represent the sun as 
anterior to the world, but as manufactured by the 
4 * old people" (Xavajos), as kindled and set going by 
the first of men (Algonkins). or as freed from some 
cave by a kindly deity (Haitians). It is always spoken 
of as a fire : only in Peru and Mexico had the pre- 
cession of the equinoxes been observed, and without 
danger of error we can merge the consideration of its 
worship almost altogether in that of this element, 
and in that of Light. 2 

The institutions of a perpetual fire, of obtaining new 
fire, and of burning the dead, prevailed extensively 
in the Xew World. In the present discussion the 
origin of such practices, rather than the ceremonies 
with which they attended, has an interest. The 
savage knew that fire was necessary to his life. Were 

1 See Byington, Grammar of the Choctaw Language, p. 43 ; 
Rev. Alfred Wright, Missionary Herald, voL 24, 1828. 

2 The words for fire and sun in American languages are 
usually from distinct roots, but besides the example of the 
Natchez I may instance to the contrary the Kolosch of British 
America, in whose tongue fire is Jean, sun, kahan (gake. great), 
and the Tezuque of Xew Mexico, who use tah for both sun and 
fire. 



THE PERPETUAL FIRE. 



151 



it lost, he justly foreboded dire calamities and the ruin 
of his race. Therefore at stated times with due so- 
lemnity he produced it anew by friction or the flint, 
or else was careful to keep one fire constantly alive. 
These not unwise precautions soon fell to mere su- 
perstitions. If the Aztec priest at the stated time 
failed to obtain a spark from his pieces of wood, if the 
sacred fire by chance became extinguished, the end 
of the world or the destruction of mankind was ap- 
prehended. <( You know it was a saying among our 
ancestors," said an Iroquois chief in 1753, " that when 
the fire at Onondaga goes out, we shall no longer be 
a people." 1 So deeply rooted was this notion, that 
the Catholic missionaries in New Mexico were fain to 
wink at it and perform the sacrifice of the mass in the 
same building where the flames were perpetually burn- 
ing, that were not to be allowed to die until Montezu- 
ma and the fabled glories of ancient Anahuac with 
its heathenism should return. 2 Thus fire became the 
type of life. " Know that the life in your body and 
the fire on your hearth are one and the same thing, 
and that both proceed from one source," said a Shaw- 
nee prophet. 3 Such an expression was wholly in 
the spirit of his race. The greatest feast of the Del- 
awares was that to their " grandfather, the fire." 4 
" Their fire burns forever," was the Algonkin figure 
of speech to express the immortality of their gods. 5 
u The ancient God, the Father and Mother of all 

1 Doc. Hist, of New York, ii. p. 631. 

2 Emory, Milt'y. Reconnoissance of New Mexico, p. 30. 

3 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 161. 

4 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der eyang. Briider, p. 55. 

5 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 351. 



152 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



Gods," says an Aztec prayer, "is the God of the Fire 
which is in the centre of the court with four walls, 
and which is covered with gleaming feathers like 
unto wings ;" 1 dark sayings of the priests, referring 
to the glittering lightning fire borne from the four 
sides of the earth. 

As the path to a higher life hereafter, the burning 
of the dead was first instituted. It was a privilege 
usually confined to a select few. Among the Algon- 
kin Ottawas, only those of the distinguished totem 
of the Great Hare, among the Nicaraguans none but 
the caciques, among the Caribs exclusively the priest- 
ly caste, were entitled to this peculiar honor. 2 The 
first gave as the reason for such an exceptional custom, 
that the members of so illustrious a clan as that of 
Michabo, the Great Hare, should not rot in the 
ground as common folks, but rise to the heavens cn 
the flames and smoke. Those of Mcaragua seemed 
to think it the sole path to immortality, holding that 
only such as offered themselves on the pyre of their 
chieftain should escape annihilation at death ; 3 and 
the tribes of upper California were persuaded that 
such as were not burned at death were liable to 
be transformed into the lower orders of brutes. 4 
Strangely enough, we thus find a sort of baptism by fire 
deemed essential to a higher life beyond the grave. 

Another analogy strengthened the symbolic force 

1 Sahagun, Hist. Nueva Espana, lib. vi. cap. 4. 

2 Letts. Edijiantes et Curieuses, ir. p. 104: ; Oviedo, Hist, du 
Nicaragua, p. 49 ; Gumilla, Hist, del Orinoco, ii. cap. 2. 

3 Oviedo, Hist. Gen. de las Indias, p. 10, in Barcia's Hist. 
Pr'm. 

4 PresdCs Message and Docs, for 1851, pt. iii. p. 506. 



THE FIRE OF THE PASSIONS. 



153 



of fire as life. This is that which exists between the 
sensation of warmth and those passions whose phys- 
iological end is the perpetuation of the species. We 
see how native it is to the mind from such coarse 
expressions as " hot lust," " to burn," 44 to be in heat," 
" stews," and the like, figures not of the poetic, but 
the vulgar tongue. They occur in all languages, and 
hint how readily the worship of fire glided into that 
of the reproductive principle, into extravagances of 
chastity and lewdness, into the orgies of the so-called 
phallic worship. 

Some have suppQsed that a sexual dualism per- 
vades all natural religions, and this too has been 
assumed as the solution of all their myths. It has 
been said that the action of heat upon moisture, of 
the sun on the waters, the mysteries of reproduction, 
and the satisfaction of the sexual instincts, are the 
unvarying themes of primitive mythology. Like 
other exclusive theories, this falls before comprehen- 
sive criticism. It derives little support from Amer- 
ican mythology. 

There existed, indeed, a worship of the passions, 
which was at times grafted upon or rose out of that of 
fire by the analogy I have pointed out. Thus the 
Mexican god of fire was supposed to govern the 
generative proclivities, 1 and there is good reason to 
believe that the sacred fire watched by unspotted 
virgins among the Mayas had decidedly such a signi- 
fication. Certainly it was so, if we can depend upon 
the authority of a ballad translated from the original 
immediately after the conquest, cited by the vener- 

1 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, i. cap. 13. 



151 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AXD THUNDER-STORM. 



able traveller and artist Count cle Waldeck. It pur- 
ports to be from the lover of one of these vestals, 
and referring to her occupation asks with a fine allu- 
sion to its mystic meaning — 

" O vierge, quand pourrai-je te posseder pour ma compa^ne 

cherie ? 

Combien de ternps faut-il encore que tes voeux soient accom- 
pli s *? 

Dis-moi le jour qui doit devancer la belle nuit ou tous deux. 
Alimenterons le feu qui nous fit naitre et que nous devons 
perpetuer." 1 

There is a bright as well as a dark side even to 
such a worship. In Mexico, Peru, and Yucatan, the 
women who watched the flames must be undoubted 
virgins : they were usually of noble blood, and must 
tot perpetual chastity, or at least were free to none 
but the ruler of the realm. As long as they were con- 
secrated to the fire, so long any carnal ardor was de- 
grading to their lofty duties. The theory of sacrifice 
led to the belief that to forego fleshly pleasures was 
a peculiarly meritorious act in the eyes of the gods. 

The whole subject of what has incorrectly been 
called " phallic worship " requires to be re-studied in 
the light of a higher science of religion than has 
hitherto been in vogue. This cult is one of several 
expressions of the religious sentiment, not primarily 
derived from the observation of nature in production, 
nor yet from mere lust, but from the promptings of 
reason and the emotion of love. As practised in 
early days at Lampsacus, or now among the Lingayets 
of India, it is pure, even austere. I would call the 

1 Voyaye Pittorcsque dans le Yucatan, p. 49. 



THE RELIGION OF SEX. 



155 



influence of the sex difference, as seen in myth and 
rite, the religion of sex, and would embrace under 
it not merely the worship of the phallus and the 
abstract generative principle, but the whole sex- 
ual relations so far as religion takes cognizance of 
them, not omiting the Comtist's adoration of wo- 
man. 

I shall briefly sketch the ramifications of the reli- 
gion of sex in the red race, as displayed toward the 
woman, toward the man, and toward their sexual 
relation. 

The woman's share in reproduction is much more 
prominent and prolonged than the man's. What 
mystery there is in it — and there is much — belongs 
to her; and as the mysterious is the fear-inspiring, 
so superstition very early and very generally threw 
its terrors around her special physiological functions. 
The earliest of these is menstruation, and nearly 
everywhere in America Ave find that when this first 
appeared the girl fasted in seclusion, and was held 
unclean until it disappeared. Among our western 
tribes she still goes apart and builds her lonely fire ; 
if a hunter touch her, he will kill no game, and the 
very dish she eats from will bring him ill fortune if 
he handle it. 

In many tribes the formality of marriage was at- 
tended with ceremonies to guard against the im- 
agined dangers which surround the arcana mulieris. 
Among the Mundrucus and Guaycurus of Brazil the 
bridegroom remains in an adjacent lodge under arms 
all night. In Cuba, Nicaragua and among the Caribs 
and Tupis the bride yielded herself first to another, 
lest her husband should come to some ill-luck by 



156 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



exercising a priority of possession ; 1 a superstition 
repeatedly paralleled in the Old World. 

Pregnancy was very generally considered to make 
a woman unclean. In many northern tribes the hus- 
band refrained from all relations during its continu- 
ance. Among the Costa Ricans, writes Mr. Gabb,* 
the worst bukuru (uncleanness) of all is that of a 
woman in her first pregnancy. "She infects the whole 
neighborhood. All the deaths and misfortunes in 
the vicinity are laid to her charge." 2 In many 
South American tribes both husband and wife begin 
a severe fast as soon as the latter discovers she is 
with child. 3 

Xot less portentous was the mystery of child- 
birth. The Cunas of Darien would put to death a 
man who aided a woman in labor, though it were to 
save her life. 4 Among the Ottawas and neighboring 
tribes, a woman dare not enter the cabin of her hus- 
band nor eat with any man for one moon after her 
confinement. 5 But the most extraordinary of all 
customs was la couvade. common throughout the 
Tupi-Guaranay stem, and not confined to them. This 
was, that when the wife was delivered, the husband 
went to bed and was waited upon and treated as the 
really sick one ! This act, so often spoken of as the 
most ridiculous of usages, as also the fast at the 

1 Martins, Von dem Reclitzustande, etc., p. 113 ; Oviedo, Hist, 
de las Indicts, lib. xvii., cap. 4 ; Xavarrete, Yiages. iii. p. 414. 
This jus prima noctis was exercised by the priests. 

2 The lad. Tribes and Langs, cf Costa Rica, p. 505. 

3 Martins, Die Ind. Yolkerscliaften in Brasilien, p. 402. 

4 De Puydt, Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc, 1808.. p. 97. 

5 Nic. Perrot, Mem. de VAm. Sept. (16G5.) p. 12. 



THE BELIEF IN WOMAN'S POWER. 157 



commencement of pregnancy, I explain as propitia- 
tory acts by the man to the mysterious forces he saw 
in reproduction. 

The secret, superstitious fear which woman thus 
inspired did not desert her when the function of par- 
turition ceased. The Fates, the Norns, the witches 
in Macbeth indicate how prevalent was the belief 
that woman holds the threads of our life in her age 
as in our iAfancy. So not only the myths but the 
customs of many tribes paid a frightened respect to 
old women, fearing them as powerful with the spirits, 
of strong " medicine*" dangerous if angered. 1 

The marvellous power of production woman has, 
it was at times supposed she could impart to grains 
and seeds. When Father Gumilla asked the men of 
an Orinoco tribe why they did not help the women to 
plant corn, they replied, " because women know how 
to bring forth, and can tell the grain ; but we do not 
know how they do it, and cannot teach it." 2 The 
wife of a Sioux, after she has planted her corn patch, 
will rise in the night, strip herself naked, and walk 
around it, thus to impart to the grains the magic of 
her own fecundity. 3 The Pawnees were wont to 
moisten their seed corn with the blood of a woman, 
choosing a female prisoner to supply it. 4 The sim- 
ple faith here shown has no profound relations to 
nature's reproductive powers, but solely to the feminine 
functions. 

Such in brief was the position of woman in the re- 

1 Compare Waitz, Anthropologic, iii., s. 101. 

2 Gumilla, Hist. Orinoco, ii. p. 237. 

3 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 70. 

4 Schoolcraft, Oneota, p. 20. 



158 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM 



lisnon of sex as found in the reel race. What now 
was that of man? 

The change which takes place at puberty was the 
signal for him to undergo a fast, and seek his guardian 
spirit. In North and South America this custom 
was general. From that time on he took a new 
name, but it was sacred and known but to his inti- 
mates. 

That circumcision, in its proper sense of abscission 
of the fore skin, was anywhere in use, I have not 
satisfied myself; but that some sort of mutilation of 
the member was very widely practised, and for some 
superstitious notion, there can be no doubt. 1 That 
it had any reference beyond a vague one to the 
general mystery of sex remains to be shown. The 
same may be said of the scarification of the geni- 
tals and painful mutilations common among the 
Mandans, Aztecs, Mayas, and many other tribes, and 
the complete discerption of the part they occasionally 
practised. 

The phallus was not an uncommon design in 
American art. I have seen several, well cut in stone, 
which have been found in the Mississippi valley ; it ap- 
pears often enough in Mexican and Yucatecan remains ; 
very prominently in Incarian designs ; and not rarely 
in the picture writings of savage tribes. But there 
seems no sufficient evidence that it anywhere was a 

1 Gumilla asserts this of tribes on the Apure and Orinoco 
{Hist, del Orinoco, p. 119); of Peruvian tribes, Coreal (Voiar/es, 
i. 291); of Mcaraguans, Oviedo (Hist Xic. ii. p. 48); of Mayas, 
Coreal (i. p. 73); of Guaycurus and others, Garcia (Or. de los 
Indios, p. 121) ; of Hares and Dogribs, Mackenzie ( Voyage, p. 
27), etc. 



RELIGIOUS ORGIES. 



159 



symbol of the reproductive power of nature. That 
it was at times regarded as a fetich — as what w r as 
not ? — is indeed true ; the women of a tribe in Para- 
guay wore an image of it as an amulet, 1 as did the 
ladies of Pompeii ; the soldiers of Cortes saw it in the 
reliefs of Panuco ; and other examples are given. But 
this is not phallic worship in its real sense. The ser- 
pent, which in the Old World so often is the symbol 
of the phallus, w T as probably never so in America; 
although its similarity in form is so obvious that in 
various tongues — the Bri-bri of Costa Rica, 2 for ex- 
ample — the same wprd is applied to the animal and 
the organ. 

As to the licentiousness in sexual relations which 
was presented at many of their religious ceremonies, 
it is not to be denied. 

Miscellaneous congress very often terminated their 
dances and festivals. Such orgies were of common 
occurrence among the Algonkins and Iroquois at a 
very early date, and are often mentioned in the Jesuit 
Relations ; Venegas describes them as frequent among 
the tribes of Lower California ; and Oviedo refers to 
certain festivals of the Mcaraguans, during which 
the women of all rank extended to whosoever wished 
just such privileges as the matrons of ancient 
Babylon, that mother of harlots and all abominations, 
used to grant even to slaves and strangers in the 
temple of Melitta, as one of the duties of religion. 
But in fact there is no ground to invest these de- 

1 Lafitan, p. 72, after Ruis. 

2 Gabb, Ind. Tribes and Langs, of Costa Rica, p. 564 ; Kebe, 
snake, and also penis. 



160 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDERS TORM. 



bauches with any recondite meaning. They are 
simply indications of the thorough immorality which 
prevailed throughout the race. 

They were on a par with the revelries in the 
sacred grove of Aphaka, a fane which the discerning 
and liberal emperor Constantine razed to the ground, 
not out of intolerance, but because these orgies had 
nothing to do with religion except to wear it as a 
cloak for profligacy. 

Any one who has listened to Indian tales, not as 
they are recorded in books, but as they are told by 
the camp-fire, will bear witness to the abounding ob- 
scenity they deal in. 1 That the same vulgarity shows 
itself in their arts and life, no genuine observer need 
doubt. And that it should be absent from their 
myths and cult were surprising ; but its presence there 
is not to be construed in the sense of phallus wor- 
ship. 

The confounding of the attributes of sex in one 
person, common in Oriental religions, seems not to 
have been unknown in Aztec myths. The Abbe 
Brasseur and Mr. Bancroft quote several examples 
of these androgynous deities ; but I think it proba- 
ble that the votaries regarded such gods as of either 
sex, not of both at once. 2 That in many tribes, men 

1 The late George Gibbs will be acknowledged as an authority 
here. He was at the time of his death about preparing a Latin 
translation of the tales he had collected, as they were too erotic 
to print in English. He wrote me, 4i Schoolcraft's legends are 
emasculated to a degree that they become no longer Indian." 

2 The Mexican gods who are alleged to have united both 
sexes in one "person are Ometeuctli and Omecihuatl (literally 
" two men" and •■ two women"), otherwise known as Citlaiicue 



CELIBACY AMONG THE PRIESTHOOD. 161 



dressed as women, yielded themselves to sodomitic 
vices, is beyond question, and also that at times this 
was done directly out of religious motives. 1 

On the other hand, not only was chastity in the 
female and celibacy in the male held in superstitious 
esteem, but it seems to have been at times enforced 
by a mutilation of the parts. 2 The Aztec goddess 
Suchiquetzal was a virgin, 3 and others could be 
named. Very many of the great gods of the race, 
Quetzalcoatl, Viracocha, Ioskeha, were at times said 
to have been born of a virgin. Even among the 
Indians of Paraguay the missionaries were startled 
to find this tradition of the maiden mother of the 
god. 4 I have already referred to the vestals of the 
semi-civilized states. 

Celibacy was very general among the priesthood. 
The "medicine men " of an Algonkin tribe who lived 
near Manhattan Island were so uncompromising on 
this point that they never so much as partook of food 
prepared by a married woman. 5 The same class 
among the Rio Negro tribes of South America must 
renounce marriage if they expect to exercise the 
higher offices of their calling. Medicines, say they, 

and Citlalatonac (literally " shining star " and " star skirt ") ; 
and Chalchihuitlicue and Chalchihuitlatonac. Mr. Bancroft 
seems to me to accept the arrenothele character of these deities 
on insufficient evidence. See his Native Races, vol. ii. p. 273, 
vol. iii. pp. 58, 373, etc. 

1 Waitz, A nthmpologie, iii. p. 113. 

2 Davila Padilla, Hist, de Santiago de Mexico, lib. ii. cap. 88. 

3 Cod. Tell. Remensis, p. 197. 

4 Letts. Ed. et Curieuses, v. p. 309. 

5 Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 28. 

11 



162 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND TH UXDER-S TO RM. 



lose all efficacy if administered by a married man. 1 
Among the hunting tribes east of the Mississippi, 
continence was observed when on the war-path, as 
they feared indulgence would be of evil omen. 

By a night of fancy inspired by a study of oriental 
mythology, the worship of the reciprocal principle 
in America has been connected with that of the sun 
and moon, as the primitive pair from whose fecund 
union all creatures proceeded. It is sufficient to say 
if such a myth exists among the Indians — which is 
questionable — it justifies no such deduction; that the 
moon is often mentioned in their languages merely as 
the " night sun ; " and that in such important stocks 
as the Iroquois, Athapascas, Cherokees, Mbocobis 
and Tupis, the sun is represented as feminine ; while 
the myths speak of them more frequently as brother 
and sister than as man and wife ; nor did at least the 
northern tribes regard the sun as the cause of fecun- 
dity in nature at all, but solely as giving light and 
warmth. 2 

In contrast to this, so much the more positive was 
their association of the thunder-storve as that which 
brings both warmth and rain with the renewed vernal 
life of vegetation. The impressive phenomena which 
characterize it, the prodigious noise, the awful flash, 
the portentous gloom, the blast, the rain, have left a 
profound impression on the myths of every land. 
Fire from water, warmth and moisture from the de- 
structive breath of the tempest, this was the riddle 

1 Martius, VolkerscJiaften Brasiliens, p. 587. 

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. pp. 416, 417; AVaitz, An'hropo- 
logie, hi. p. 472. 



THE THUNDER-STORM. 



163 



of riddles to the untutored mind. *' Out of the eater 
came forth meat, out of the strong came forth sweet- 
ness." It was the visible synthesis of all the di- 
vine manifestations, the winds, the water, and the 
flames. 

The Dakotas conceived it as a struggle between 
the god of waters and the thunder bird for the com- 
mand of their nation, 1 and as a bird, one of those 
which make a whirring sound with their wings, the 
turkey, the pheasant, or the nighthawk, it was very 
generally depicted by their neighbors, the Athapas- 
cas, Iroquois, and Algonkins. 2 As the herald of the 
summer it was to them a good omen and a friendly 
power. It was the voice of the Great Spirit of the 
four winds speaking from the clouds and admonish- 
ing them that ^the time of corn planting was at hand. 3 
The flames kindled by the lightning were of a sacred 
nature, proper to be employed in lighting the fires of 
the religious rites, but on no account to be profaned 
by the base uses of daily life. When the flash en- 
tered the grouncl it scattered in all directions these 
stones, such as the flint, which betray their supernal 
origin by a gleam of fire when struck. These were 
the thunderbolts, and from such an one, significantly 
painted red, the Dakotas averred their race had pro- 
ceeded. 4 For are we not all in a sense indebted for 

1 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 161. 

2 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 27 ; Schoolcraft, Algic 
Researches, ii. p. 116 ; Ind. Tribes, v. p. 420. 

3 De Smet, Western Missions, p. 135 ; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, 
i. p. 319. 

4 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 72. By another le- 
gend they claimed that their first ancestor obtained his fire from 



164 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AXD THUNDER-STORM. 



our lives to fire ? " There is no end to the fancies 
entertained by the Sioux concerning thunder,'' ob- 
serves Mrs. Eastman. They typified the paradoxical 
nature of the storm under the character of the giant 
Haokah. To him cold was heat, and heat cold; 
when sad he laughed, when merry groaned ; the sides 
of his face and his eyes were of different colors and 
expressions ; he wore horns or a forked headdress to 
represent the lightning, and with his hands he hurl- 
ed the meteors. His manifestations were fourfold, 
and one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used 
to produce the thunder. 1 

Omitting many others, enough that the sameness 
of this conception is illustrated by the myth of Tupa, 
highest god and the first man of the Tupis of Brazil. 
During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, 
gave them fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in 
the form of a huge bird sweeps over the heavens, 
watching his children and watering their crops, ad- 
monishing them of the presence by the mighty sound 
of his voice, the rustling of his wings, and the flash 
of his eve. These are the thunder, the lightning;, and 

t, 7 O O 7 

the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns ; 
he was one of four brothers, and only after a desper- 
ate struofo'le did he drive his fraternal rivals from 
the field. In his worship, the priests place pebbles 
in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and 

V.ie sparks which a friendly panther struck from the rocks as he 
scampered up a stony hill (McCoy, Hist, of Baptist Indian Mis- 
sions, p. 364). 

1 Mrs. Eastman, ubi sup., p. 158; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, 
vi. p. 645. 



THE MYTH OF CATEQUIL. 



165 



rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the 
tremendous drama of the storm. 1 

As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on 
a more complex form and a more poetic fulness. 
Throughout the realm of the Incas the Peruvians 
venerated as creator of all things, maker of heaven 
and earth, and ruler of the firmament, the god 
Ataguju. The legend was that from him proceeded 
the first of mortals, the man Guamansuri, who de- 
scended to the earth and there seduced the. sister of 
certain Guachemines, rayless ones, or Darklings, who 
then possessed it. *For this crime they destroyed 
him, but their sister proved pregnant, and died in her 
labor, giving birth to two eggs. From these emerged 
the twin brothers, Apocatequil and Piguerao. 
The former was the more powerful. By touching 
the corpse of his mother he brought her to life, he 
drove off and slew the Guachemines, and, directed 
by Ataguju, released the race of Indians from the 
soil by turning it up with a spade of gold. For this 
reason they adored him as their maker. He it was, 
they thought, who produced the thunder and the 
lightning by hurling stones with his sling ; and the 
thunderbolts that fall, said they, are his children. 
Few villages were willing to be without one or more 
of these. They were in appearance small, round, 
smooth stones, but had the admirable properties of 
securing fertility to the fields, protecting from light- 
ning, and, by a transition easy to understand, were also 
adored as gods of the Fire, as well as material of the 

1 Waitz, Anthropologic, iii. p. 417 ; Miiller, Am. Urrelig., p. 
271. 



166 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



passions, and were capable of kindling the dangerous 
flames of desire in the most frigid bosoms. Therefore 
they were in great esteem as love charms. 

Apocatequil's statue was erected on the mountains, 
with that of his mother on one hand, and his brother 
on the other. " He was Prince of Evil and the most 
respected god of the Peruvians. From Quito to 
Cuzco not an Indian but would give all he possessed 
to conciliate him. Five priests, two stewards, and 
a crowd of slaves served his image. And his chief 
temple was surrounded by a very considerable village 
whose inhabitants had no other occupation than to 
wait on him." In memory of these brothers, twins 
in Peru were always deemed sacred to the lightning, 
and when a woman or even a llama brought them 
forth, a fast was held and sacrifices offered to the 
two pristine brothers, with a chant commencing : 
A clmchu cacMqui, O Thou who causest twins, words 
mistaken by the Spaniards for the name of a- deity. 1 

1 On the myth of Catequil see particularly the Lettre sur les 
Superstitions du Perou, p. 95 sqq., and compare Montesinos, 
Ancien Perou, chaps, ii., xx. The letters g and j do not exist 
in Quichua, therefore Ataguju should doubtless read A ta-chucfru, 
which means lord, or ruler of the twins, from ati root of atini, 
I am able, I control, and chuchu, twins. The change of the 
root ati to ata, though uncommon in Quichua, occurs also in 
atahualpa, cock, from ati and hualpa, fowl. Apo-Catequil, or 
as given by Arriaga, another old writer on Peruvian idolatry, 
Apocatequilla, I take to be properly apu-ccatec-quilla, which 
literally means chief of the followers of the moon. Acosta men- 
tions that the native name for various constellations was cata- 
chillay or catuchittay, doubtless corruptions of ccatec quilla, 
literally "following the moon." Catequil, therefore, the dark 
spirit of the storm rack, was also appropriately enough, and 



PERUVIAN MYTHS. 



167 



Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant of the Incas, 
has preserved an ancient indigenous poem of his na- 
tion, presenting the storm myth in a different form, 
which as undoubtedly authentic and not devoid of 
poetic beauty I translate, preserving as much as pos- 
sible the trochaic tetrasyllable verse of the original 
Quichua : — 

" Beauteous princess, 
Lo, thy brother 
Breaks thy vessel 
Now in fragments. 
From the blow come 
^Thunder, lightning-, 
Strokes of lightning'. 
And thou, princess, 
Tak'st the water, 
With it rainest, 
And the hail, or 
Snow dispensest. 
Viracocha, 
World constructor, 

pernaps primarily, lord of the night and stars. Piguerao, 
where the g appears again, is probably a compound of piscu, 
bird, and uira, white. Guachemines seems clearly the word 
huachi, a ray of light or an arrow, with the negative suffix 
ymana, thus meaning ray less, as in the text, or ymana may mean 
an excess as well as a want of anything beyond what is natural, 
which would give the signification "very bright shining." 
(Holguin, Arte de la Lengua Quichua, p. 106 : Cuzco, 1607.) Is 
this sister of theirs the Dawn, who, as in the Kig Veda, brings 
forth at the cost of her own life the white and dark twins, the 
Day and the Night, the latter of whom drives from the heavens 
the f ar-shoot'ng arrows of light, in order that he may restore his 
mother again to life ? The answer may for the present be de- 
ferred. It is a coincidence perhaps worth mentioning that the 
Augustin monk who is our principal authority for this legend 
mentions two other twin deities Yamo and Yama, whose names 
are almost identical with the twins Yama and Yami of the 
Veda. 



168 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



World enliv'ner, 
To this office 
Thee appointed, 
Thee created. 

In this pretty waif that has floated down to us 
from the wreck of a literature now forever lost, there 
is more than one point to attract the notice of the 
antiquary. He may find in it a hint to decipher those 
names of divinities so common in Peruvian legends, 
Contici and Illatici. Both mean " the Thunder Vase," 
and both doubtless refer to the conception here dis- 
played of the phenomena of the thunder-storm. 2 

Again, twice in this poem is the triple nature of 
the storm adverted to. This is observable in many 
of the religions of America. It constitutes a sort of 
Trinity, not in any point resembling that of Chris- 
tianity, nor yet the Trimurti of India, but the only 
one in the New World the least degree authenticated, 
and which, as half seen by ignorant monks, has caused 
its due amount of sterile astonishment. Thus, in the 

1 Hist, des Incas, liv. ii. cap. 28, and corrected in Mark- 
ham's Quichua Gramma): 

2 The latter is a compound of tici or tlccu, a vase, and ylla, the 
root of yllani, to shine, yllapantac, it thunders and lightens. 
The former is from toe* and cun or con, whence by reduplication 
cun-un-un-an, it thunders. From cun and tura, brother, is prob- 
ably derived cuntur, the condor, the flying thunder-cloud 
being looked u^on as a great bird also. Dr. Waitz has pointed 
out that the Araucanians call by the title con, the messenger 
who summons their chieftains to a general council. The Cu- 
nas, a Carib tribe, still live in the province of Darien. Las 
Casas says the chief god there was Chicun— principio de todo- 
{Hist. Apologet. MSS. cap. 125). The Diet. Galib. gives as 
Carib for thunder cono-merou. The syllable again appears in 
the Carib, Savacon, the thunder God. 



THE AMERICAN TRINITY. 



169 



Quiche legends we read : " The first of Hurakan is 
the lightning, the second the track of the lightning, 
and the third the stroke of the lightning ; and these 
three are Hurakan, the Heart of the Sky." 1 It reap- 
pears with characteristic uniformity of outline in 
Iroquois mythology. Heno, the thunder, gathers the 
clouds and pours out the warm rains. Therefore he 
was the patron of husbandry. He was invoked at 
seed time and harvest ; and as purveyor of nourish- 
ment he was addressed as grandfather, and his wor- 
shippers styled themselves his grandchildren. He 
rode through the heavens on the clouds, and the 
thunderbolts which split the forest trees were the 
stones he hurled at his enemies. TJiree assistants were 
assigned him, whose names have unfortunately not 
been recorded, and whose offices were apparently 
similar to those of the three companions of Hurakan. 2 

So also the Aztecs supposed that Tlaloc, god of 
rains and the waters, ruler of the terrestrial paradise 
and the season of summer, manifested himself under 
the three attributes of the flash, the thunderbolt, and 
the thunder. 3 

But this conception of three in one was above the 
comprehension of the masses, and consequently these 
deities were also spoken of as fourfold in nature, three 
and one. Moreover, as has already been pointed 
out, the thunder god was usually ruler of the winds, 
and thus another reason for his quadruplicate nature 

1 Le Livre Sucre, p. 9. The name of the lightning in Qui- 
che is cakul ha, literally, "fire coming from water." 

2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 158. 

3 " El rayo, el relampago, y el trueno." Gama, Des. de las 
dos Piedras, etc., ii. p. 76: Mexico, 1832. 



170 MYTHS OF WATER, FIRE, AND THUNDER-STORM. 



was suggested. Hurakan, Haokah, Tlaloc, and prob- 
ably Heno, are plural as well as singular nouns, and 
are used as nominatives to verbs in both, numbers. 
Tlaloc was appealed to as inhabiting each of the car- 
dinal points and every mountain top. His statue 
rested on a square stone pedestal, facing the east, 
and had in one hand a serpent of gold. Ribbons of 
silver, crossing to form squares, covered the robe, 
and the shield was composed of feathers of four col- 
ors, yellow, green, red, and blue. Before it was a 
vase containing all sorts of grain; and the clouds 
were called his companions, the winds his messen- 
gers. 1 As elsewhere, the thunderbolts were believed 
to be flints, and thus, as the emblem of fire and the 
storm, this stone figures conspicuously in their myths. 
Tohil, the god who gave the Quiches fire by shaking 
his sandals, was represented by a flint-stone. 2 Such 
a stone, in the besfinninsf of things, fell from heaven 
to earth, and broke into 1600 pieces, each of which 
sprang up a god ; 3 an ancient legend, which shadows 
forth the subjection of all things to him who gathers 
the clouds from the four corners of the earth, who 
thunders with his voice, who satisfies with his rain 
4i the desolate and waste ground, and causes the 
tender herb to spring forth." This is the germ of 
the adoration of stones as emblems of the fecunda- 
ting rains. This is why, for example, the Navajos 
use as their charm for rain certain long round stones, 

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 23. Gama, 
ubi sup. ii. 76. 77. 

2 Brasseur. Le Livre Sacre, Introd. p. exxii. 

3 Torquemada, ibid., lib. vi. cap. 41. 



THE CLOUD SERPENT. 



171 



which, they think fall from the cloud when it thun- 
ders. 1 

Mixcoatl, the Cloud Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, 
the White or Gleaming Cloud Serpent, said to have 
been the only divinity of the ancient Chichimecs, 
held in high honor by the Nahuas, Mcaraguans, and 
Otomis, and identical with Taras, supreme god of the 
Tarascos and Camaxtli, god of the Teo-Chichimecs, is 
another personification of the thunder-storm. To 
this day this is ths familiar name of the tropical 
tornado in the Mexican language. 2 He Avas repre- 
sented, like Jove, with a bundle of arrows in 
his hand, the thunderbolts. Both the Nahuas 
and Tarascos related legends in which he figured 
as father of the race of man. Like other lords 
of the lightning he was worshipped as the dis- 
penser of riches and the patron of traffic ; and in Ni- 
caragua his image is described as being " engraved 
stones," 3 probably the supposed products of the 
thunder. 

1 Senate Report on the Indian Tribes, p. 358 : Washington, 
1867. 

2 Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, i. p. 201, and on the extent of 
his worship, Waitz, AnthropoL, iv. p. 144. 

3 Oviedo, Hist, du Nicaragua, p. 47. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE STTPKEME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 

Analysis of American culture myths. — The Manibozho or Michabo of 
the Algonkins shown to be an impersonation of Light, a hero of the 
Dawn, and their highest deity. — The myths of Ioskeha of the Iroquois, 
Yiracocha of the Peruvians, and Quetzalcoatl of the Toltecs essentially 
the same as that of Michabo. — Other examples. — Ante-Columbian 
prophecies of the advent of a white race from the east as conquerors. — 
Rise of later culture myths under similar forms. 

THE philosopher Machiavelli, commenting on the 
books of Livy, lays it down as a general truth 
that every form and reform has been brought about 
by a single individual. Since a remorseless criticism 
has shorn so many heroes of their laurels, our faith 
in the maxim of the great Florentine wavers, and the 
suspicion is created that the popular fancy which 
personifies under one figure every social revolution 
is an illusion. It springs from that tendency to hero 
worship, ineradicable in the heart of the race, which 
leads every nation to have an ideal, the imagined 
author of its prosperity, the father of his country, 
and the focus of its legends. As has been hinted, 
research is not friendly to their renown, and dissi- 
pates them altogether into phantoms of the brain, or 
sadly dims the lustre of their fame. Arthur, bright 
star of chivalry, dwindles to a Welsh subaltern ; the 
Cid Campeador, defender of the faith, sells his sword 
as often to Moslem as to Christian, and sells it ever; 
while Siegfried and Feridun vanish into nothings. 



THE STORY OF MICH ABO. 



173 



Such a conclusion will not at first be accepted 
without a struggle. The historian will cling to what 
he has been used to regard as the fact; he will defend 
it as that which alone is fruitful and of lasting pow- 
er ; he will maintain that " the ideal is drawn orig- 
inally from examples; " that nations may not obtain 
lofty conceptions of moral truth without living em- 
bodiments thereof. 1 But the philosopher who has 
closely sifted the nature of mind comes to a different 
conclusion; he finds the ideal is drawn from within, 
not given from without ; he says with the Apostle 
" In the beginning was the Thought," Ev apy-q r t \> 6 
Aoyoq) and he lays*down the maxim that "imitation 
has no place in morals." 2 Scrutinizing closely the 
ideals of history, he discovers these heroes to be 
lords of the realms of pious or patriotic fancy only. 

As elsewhere the world over, so in America, many 
tribes had to tell of such a personage, some such 
august character, who taught them what they knew, 
the tillage of the soil, the properties of plants, the 
art of picture writing, the secrets of magic ; who 
founded their institutions and established their relig- 
ions, who governed them long with glory abroad 
and peace at home ; finally, did not die, but like 
Frederick Barbarossa, Charlemagne, King Arthur, 
and all great heroes, vanished mysteriously, and still 
lives somewhere, ready at the right moment to return 
to his beloved people and lead them to victory and 
happiness. Such to the Algonkins was Michabo or 

1 See Mr. Kirk's remarks in his edition of Prescott's Con- 
quest of Mexico, i. p. 63. 

2 Kant, The Metaphysic of Ethics, p. 19. 



174 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



Manibozho, to the Iroquois Ioskeha, Wasi to the 
Cherokees, Tamoi to the Caribs ; so the Mayas had 
Zamna, the Toltecs Quetzalcoatl, the Muyscas Nem- 
queteba; such among the Quichuas was Viracocha, 
among the Mandans Numock-muckenah, among the 
Hidatsa Itamapisa, and among the natives of the Ori- 
noko Amalivaca ; and the catalogue could be extend- 
ed indefinitely. 

It is not always easy to pronounce upon these 
heroes, whether they belong to history or mythology, 
their nation's poetry or its prose. In arriving at a 
conclusion we must remember that a fiction built on 
an idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a 
story founded on fact. Further, that if a striking 
similarity in the legends of two such heroes be dis- 
covered under circumstances which forbid the thought 
that one was derived from the other, then both are 
probably mythical. If this is the case in not two but 
in half a dozen instances, then the probability amounts 
to a certainty, and the only task remaining is to 
explain such narratives on consistent mythological 
principles. If after sifting out all foreign and later 
traits, it appears that when first known to Europeans, 
these heroes were assigned all the attributes of high- 
est divinity, were the imagined creators and rulers of 
the world, and mightiest of spiritual powers, then 
their position must be set far higher than that of 
deified men. They must be accepted as the supreme 
gods of the red race, the analogues in the western 
continent, of Jupiter, Osiris, and Odin in the eastern, 
and whatever opinions contrary to this may have 
been advanced by writers and travellers must be set 
down to the account of that prevailing ignorance of 



THE STORY OF MICH ABO. 



175 



American mythology which has fathered so many 
other blunders. To solve these knotty points I shall 
choose for analysis the culture myths of the Algon- 
kins, the Iroquois, the Toltecs of Mexico, and the 
Quichuas or Peruvians, guided in my choice by the 
fact that these four families are the best known, and, 
in many points of view, the most important on the 
continent. 

From the remotest wilds of the northwest to the 
coast of the Atlantic, from the southern boundaries 
of Carolina to the cheerless swamps of Hudson Bay, 
the Algonkins were never tired of gathering around 
the winter fire and repeating the story of Manibozho 
or Michabo, the (Grreat Hare. With entire unanimity 
their various branches, the PowhatanS'Of Virginia, 
the Lenni Lenapeof the Delaware, the warlike hordes 
of New England, the Ottawas of the far north, and 
the western tribes perhaps without exception, spoke 
of " this chimerical beast," as one of the old mission- 
aries calls it, as their common ancestor. The totem 
or clan which bore his name was looked up to with 
peculiar respect. In many of the tales which the 
whites have preserved of Michabo he seems half a 
wizard, half a simpleton. He is full of^pranks and 
wiles, but often at a loss for a meal of victuals ; ever 
itching to try his arts magic on great beasts and often 
meeting ludicrous failures therein ; envious of the 
powers of others, and constantly striving to outdo 
them in what they do best ; in short, little more" 
than a malicious buffoon delighting in practical 
jokes, and abusing his superhuman powers for selfish 
and ignoble ends. But this is a low, modern, and 
corrupt version of the character of Michabo, bearing 



176 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



no more resemblance to his real and ancient one 
than the language an( i acts of our Saviour and the 
apostles in the coarse Mystery Plays of the Middle 
Ages do to those recorded by the Evangelists. 

What he really was we must seek in the accounts 
of older travellers, in the invocations of the jossa- 
keecls or prophets, and in the part assigned to him 
in the solemn mysteries of religion. In these we 
find him portrayed as the patron and founder of the 
meda worship, 1 the inventor of picture writing, the 
father and guardian of their nation, the ruler of the 
winds, even the maker and preserver of the world and 
creator of the sun and moon. From a grain of sand 
brought from the bottom of the primeval ocean, he 
fashioned the habitable land and set it floating on 
the waters, till it grew to such a size that a strong 
young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere 
he reached its limits. Under the name Michabo Ovi- 
saketchak, the Great Hare who created the Earth, he 
was originally the highest divinity recognized by 
them, " powerful and beneficent beyond all others, 
maker of the heavens and the world." He was 
founder of the medicine hunt in which after appro- 
priate ceremonies and incantations the Indian sleeps, 
and Michabo appears to him in a dream, and tells 
him where he may readily kill game. He himself 
was a mighty hunter of old; one of his footsteps 

1 The meda worship is the ordinary religious ritual of the 
Algonkins. It consists chiefly in exhibitions of legerdemain, 
and in conjuring and exorcising demons. A jossakeed is an 
inspired prophet who derives his power directly from the 
higher spirits, and not as the jnedaicin, by instruction and 
practice. 



THE DEEDS OF MICH ABO. 



Ill 



measured eight leagues, the Great Lakes were the 
beaver dams he built, and when the cataracts im- 
peded his progress he tore them away with his hands. 
Attentively watching the spider spread its web to 
trap unwary flies, he devised the art of knitting nets 
to catch fish, and the signs and charms he tested and 
handed down to his descendants are of marvellous 
efficacy in the chase. In the autumn, in " the moon 
of the falling leaf," ere he composes himself to his 
winter's sleep, he fills his great pipe and takes a god- 
like smoke. The balmy clouds float over the hills 
and woodlands, filling the air with the haze of the 
" Indian summer." 

Sometimes he was said to dwell in the skies with 
his brother the snow, or, like many great spirits, to 
have built his wigwam in the far north on some floe 
of ice in the Arctic Ocean ; while the Chipeways 
localized his birthplace and former home to the Is- 
land Michilimakinac at the outlet of Lake Superior. 
But in the oldest accounts of the missionaries he 
was alleged to reside toward the east, and in the 
holy formulae of the meda craft, when the winds are 
invoked to the medicine lodge, the east is summoned 
in his name, the door opens in that direction, and 
there, at the edge of the earth, where the sun rises, 
on the shore of the infinite ocean that surrounds the 
land, he has his house and sends the luminaries forth 
on their daily journey. 1 

1 For these particulars see the Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1667, 
p. 12, 1670, p. 93 ; Charlevoix, Journal Historique, p. 344 ; 
Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. pp. 420 sqq., and Alex. Henry, 
Travs. in Canada and the Ind. Territories, pp. 212 sqq. These 
are decidedly the best references of the many that could be 



178 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



It is passing strange that such an insignificant 
creature as the rabbit should have received this apo- 
theosis. No explanation of it in the least satisfactory 
has ever been offered. Some have pointed it out as a 
senseless, meaningless, brute worship. It leads to the 
suspicion that there may lurk here one of those confu- 
sions of words which have so often led to confusion 
of ideas in mythology. Manibozho, ISTanibojou, Mis- 
sibizi, Michabo, Messou, all variations of the same 
name in different dialects rendered according to dif- 
ferent orthographies, scrutinize them closely as we 
may, they all seem compounded according to well as- 
certained laws of Algonkin euphony from the words 
corresponding to great and hare or rabbit, or the first 
two perhaps from spirit and hare (inichi, great, ivabos, 
hare, manito tvabos^iiit hare, Chipeway dialect), and 
so they have invariably been translated even by the 
Indians themselves. But looking more narrowly at 
the word, it is clearly capable of another and very dif- 
ferent interpretation, of an interpretation which dis- 
closes at once the origin and the secret meaning of 
the whole story of Michabo, in the light of which it ap- 
pears no longer the incoherent fable of savages, but a 
true myth, instinct with nature, pregnant with matter, 
nowise inferior to those which fascinate in the chants 
of the Rig Veda, or the weird pages of the Edcla. 

On a previous page I have emphasized with what 
might have seemed superfluous force, how prominent 
in primitive mythology is the east, the source of the 
morning, the day-spring on high, the cardinal point 

furnished. Peter Jones' History of the Ojibway Indians, p. 35; 
Nic. Perrot, Mem. surVAmer. Sept. (1665), pp, 12, 19, 339, 
and Blomes, State ofhisMaj. Terr., p. 193. 



THE STORY OF MICHABO. 



179 



which determines and controls all others. But I did 
not lay so much stress on it as others have. " The 
whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient 
world," says Max Midler, " centred in the Dawn, 
the mother of the bright gods, of the Sun in his 
various aspects, of the morn, the day, the spring ; 
herself the brilliant image and visage of immortality." 1 
Now it appears on attentively examining the Argon- 
kin root wab, that it gives rise to words of very 
diverse meaning, that like many others in all lan- 
guages while presenting but one form it represents 
ideas of wholly unlike^origin and application, that in 
fact there are two distinct roots having this sound. 
One is the initial syllable of the word translated hare 
or rabbit, but the other means white, and from it is 
derived the words for the east, the dawn, the light, 
the day, and the morning. 2 Beyond a doubt this is 
the compound in the names Michabo andManibozho 
which therefore mean the Great Light, the Spirit of 
Light, of the Dawn, or the East, and in the literal 
sense of the word the Great White One, as indeed he 
has sometimes been called. 

In this sense all the ancient and authentic myths 

1 Science of Language, Second series, p. 518. 

2 Dialectic forms in Algonkin for white, are wabi, wape, wompi, 
waubish, oppai; for morning, wapan, wnpaneh, opah ; for east 
wapa, waubun, waubamo ; for dawn, ivapa, waubun ; for day 
wompan, oppan ; for light, oppung ; and many others similar. 
In the Abnaki dialect, wanbighen, it is white, is the customary 
idiom to express the breaking of the day (Yetromile, The Ab- 
nakis and their History, p. 27 : New York, 1866). The loss in 
composition of the vowel sound represented by the English w, 
and in the French writers by the figure 8, is supported by 
frequent analogy. 



180 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



concerning him are plain and full of meaning. They 
divide themselves into two distinct cycles. In the 
one Mickabo is the spirit of light who dispels the 
darkness ; in the other as chief of the cardinal points 
he is lord of the winds, prince of the powers of the 
air, whose voice is the thunder, whose weapon the 
lightning, the supreme figure in the encounter of the 
air currents, in the unending conflict which the Dako- 
tas described as waged by the waters and the winds. 

In the first he is grandson of the moon, his father 
is in the West Wind, and his mother, a maiden, dies in 
giving him birth at the moment of conception. For 
the moon is the goddess of night, the Dawn is her 
daughter, who brings forth the morning and perishes 
herself in the act, and the West, the spirit of dark- 
ness as the East is of light, proceeds and as it were 
begets the latter, as the evening does the morning. 
Straightway, however, continues the legend, the son 
sought the unnatural father to revenue the death of 
his mother, and then commenced a long and desperate 
struirjrle. " It be^an on the mountains. The West 
was forced to give ground. Manibozho drove him 
across rivers and over mountains and lakes, and at 
last he came to the brink of this world. 4 Hold,' cried 
he, 4 my son, you know my power and that it is im- 
possible to kill me.' " 1 What is this but the diurnal 
combat of light and darkness, carried on from what 
time " the jocund morn stands tiptoe on the misty 
mountain tops," across the wide world to the sunset, 
the struggle that knows no end, for both the oppo- 
nents are immortal ? 



1 Schoolcraft, A Igic Researches, i. pp. 135-142. 



THE FIRST FOUR BROTHERS. 



181 



In the second, and evidently to the native mind 
more important cycle of legends, he was represented 
as one of four brothers, the North, the South, the 
East, and the West, all born at a birth, whose mother 
died in ushering them into the world ; 1 for hardly 
has the kindling orient served to fix the cardinal 
points ere it is lost and dies in the advancing day. 
Yet it is clear that he was something more than a 
personification of the east or the east wind, for it is 
repeatedly said that it was he who assigned their 
duties to all the winds, to that of the east as well as 
the others. This is a blending of his two characters. 
Here too his life is a battle. No longer with his 
father, indeed, but with his brother Chakekenapok, 
the flint-stone, whom he broke in pieces and scat- 
tered over the land, and changed his entrails into 
fruitful vines. The conflict was long and terrible. 
The face of nature was desolated as by a tornado, 
and the gigantic boulders and loose rocks found on 
the prairies are the missiles hurled by the mighty com- 

1 The names of the four brothers, Wabun, Kabun, Kabibo- 
nokka, and Shawano, express in Algonkin both the cardinal 
points and the winds which blow from them. In another ver- 
sion of the legend, first reported by Father de Smet and quoted 
by Schoolcraft without acknowledgment, they are JSIanaboojoo 
Chipiapoos, Wabosso, and Chakekenapok. Lederer gives the 
names in the Oenock dialect in Virginia asPash, Sepoy, Aska- 
rin and Maraskarin (Discoveries, p. 4). He calls them igno- 
rantly " four women." When Captain Argoll visited the Po- 
tomac in 1610 a chief told him : " We have five gods in all; 
our chief god appears often unto us in the form of a mighty 
great hare ; the other four have no visible shape, but are in- 
deed the four winds which keep the four corners of the earth." 
(Wm. Strachey, Historie of Travaile into Virginia, p. 98.) 



182 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



batants. Or else his foe was the glittering prince 
of serpents whose abode was the lake; or was the 
shining Manito whose home was guarded by fiery 
serpents and a deep sea; or was the great king of 
fishes ; all symbols of the atmospheric waters, all 
figurative descriptions of the wars of the elements. 
In these affrays the thunder and lightning are at his 
command, and with them he destroys his enemies. 
For this reason the Chipeway pictography represents 
him brandishing a rattlesnake, the symbol of the 
electric flash, 1 and sometimes they called him the 
Northwest Wind, which in the region they inhabit 
usually brings the thunder-storms. 

As ruler of the winds he was, like Quetzalcoatl, 
father and protector of all species of birds, their 
symbols. 2 He was patron of hunters, for their course 
is guided by the cardinal points. . Therefore, when 
the medicine hunt has been successful, the prescribed 
sisrn of gratitude to him was to scatter a hai.dful of 
the animal's blood towards each of these. 3 As day- 
light brings vision, and to see is to know, it was no 
fable that gave him as the author of their arts, their 
wisdom and their institutions. 

In effect, his story is a world-wide truth, veiled 
under a thin garb of fancy. It is but a variation of 
that narrative which every race has to tell, out of 
gratitude to the beneficent Father who everywhere 
has cared for His children. Michabo, giver of life 
and light, creator and preserver, is no apotheosis of a 

1 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 351. 

2 Schoolcraft, Algic Res., i. p. 216. 

3 Narrative of John Tanner, p. 354. 



IROQUOIS TRADITIONS. 



183 



prudent chieftain, still less the fabrication of an idle 
fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, deeds, 
and name the not unworthy personification of the 
purest conceptions they possessed concerning the 
Father of All. To Him at early dawn the Indian 
stretched forth his hands in prayer ; and to the sky 
or the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in 
his ceremonies, rites often misinterpreted by travel- 
lers as indicative of sun worship. As later observers 
tell us to this day the Algonkin prophet builds the 
medicine lodge to face the sunrise, and in the name 
of Michabo, who there has his home, summons the 
spirits of the four quarters of the world and Gizhi- 
gooke, the day maker, to come to his fire and disclose 
the hidden things of the distant and the future ; so 
the earliest explorers relate that when they asked the 
native priests who it was they invoked, what demons 
or familiars, the invariable reply was " the Kichi- 
gouai, the genii of light, those who make the day." 1 
Our authorities on Iroquois traditions, though nu- 
merous enough, are not so satisfactory. The best, 
perhaps is Father Brebeuf, a Jesuit missionary, who 
resided among the Hurons in 1626. Their culture 
myth, which he has recorded, is strikingly similar to 
that of the Algonkins. Two brothers appear in it, 
Ioskeha and Tawiscara, names which find their mean- 
ing in the Oneida dialect as the White one and the 
Dark one. 2 They were twins, born of a virgin mother, 

1 Compare the Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, p. 14, 1637, p. 
46, with Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 419. Kichigouai is the 
same word as Gizhigooke, according to a different orthography. 

2 The names ISskeha and TaSiscara I venture to identify with 
the Oneida owisske or owiska, white, and tetiucalas (tyokaras, 



181 



THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



who died in giving them life. Their grandmother 
was the moon, called by the Hurons Ataensic, a word 
which signifies literally she bathes herself, and which, 
in the opinion of Father Brnyas, a most competent 
authority, is derived from the word for water. 1 

The brothers quarrelled, and finally came to blows ; 
the former using the horns of a stag, the latter the 
wild rose. He of the weaker weapon was very 
naturally discomfited and sorely wounded. . Fleeing 
for life, the blood gushed from him at every step, 
and as it fell turned into flint-stones. The victor 
returned to his grandmother, and established his lodge 
in the far east, on the borders of the great ocean, 
whence the sun comes. In time he became the father 
of mankind, and special guardian of the Iroquois. 
The earth was at first arid and sterile, but he de- 
stroyed the gigantic frog which had swallowed all 

tewhgar 7 ars Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to oioisske 
is the impersonal third person singular; the suffix ha gives a 
future sense, so that i-owisske-ha or iouskeha means " it is going 
to become white. " Brebeuf gives a similar example of gaon, 
old; a-gaon-ha, ilva devenir vieux (Rel. Nouv. France, 163G, p. 
99). But " it is going to become white," meant to the Iroa L uois 
that the dawn was about to appear, just as wanbiglien, it is white, 
did to the Abnakis (see note on page 179), and as the Eskimos 
say, kau ma ivok, it is white, to express that it is daylight 
(Richardson's Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in his Arctic Expedi- 
tion). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light 
oi the dawn admits of no dispute. 

1 The orthography of Brebeuf is aataentsic. This may be 
analyzed as follows: root aouen, water; prefix at, il y a quelque 
chose Id dedans; alaouen, se baigner ; from which comes the 
form ataouensere. (SeeBruyas, Rad. Verb. Iroquceor., pp. 30, 31.) 
Here again the mythological role of the moon as the goddess of 
water comes distinctly to light. 



THE MYTH OF 10SKEUA. 



185 



the waters, and guided the torrents into smooth 
streams and lakes. 1 The woods he stocked with 
game ; and having learned from the great tortoise, 
who supports the world, how to make fire, taught his 
children, the Indians, this indispensable art. He it 
was who watched and watered their crops ; and in- 
deed, without his aid, says the old missionary, quite 
out of patience with such puerilities, " they think 
they could not boil a pot." Sometimes they spoke 
of him as the sun, but this only figuratively. 2 

From other writers of early date we learn that the 
essential outlines of this myth were received by the 
Tuscaroras and the Mohawks, and as the proper 
names of the two brothers are in the Oneida dialect, 
we cannot err in considering this the national legend 
of the Iroquois stock. There is strong likelihood 
that the Taronhiawagon, he who comes from the 
Sky, of the Onondagas, who was their supreme God, 
who spoke to them in- dreams, and in whose honor 
the chief festival of their calendar was celebrated 
about the winter solstice, was, in fact, Ioskeha under 
another name. 3 As to the legend of the Good and 

1 This offers an instance of the uniformity which prevailed in 
symbolism in the New World. The Aztecs adored the goddess 
of water under the figure of a frog carved from a single emerald ; 
or of human form, but holding in her hand the leaf of a water 
lily ornamented with frogs. (Brasseur, Hist, de Mexique, i. p. 
324.) 

2 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 101. 

8 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1671, p. 17. Cusic spells it Taren- 
yawagon, and translates it Holder of the Heavens. But the 
name is evidently a compound of garonhia, sky, softened in the 
Onondaga dialect to taronhia (see Gallatin's Vocabs. under the 
word sky), and wagm, 1 come. 



186 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



Bad Minds given by Cusic, to which I have referred 
in a previous chapter, and the later and wholly 
spurious myth of Hiawatha, first made public 
by Mr. Clark in his History of Onondaga (1849), 
and which, in the graceful poem of Longfellow, 
is now familiar to the world, they are but pale 
and incorrect reflections of the early native tradi- 
tions. 

So strong is the resemblance Ioskeha bears to 
Michabo, that what has been said in explanation of 
the latter will be sufficient for both. Yet I do not 
imagine that the one was copied or borrowed from 
the other. TTe cannot be too cautious in adopting 
such a conclusion. The two nations were remote in 
everything but geographical position. I call to 
mind another similar myth. In it a mother is also 
said to have brought forth twins, or a pair of twins, 
and to have paid for them with her life. Again the 
one is described as the bright, the other as the dark 
twin ; again it is said that they struggled one with 
the other for the mastery. Scholars, likewise, have 
interpreted the mother to mean the Dawn, the twins 
either Light and Darkness, or the Four Winds. Yet 
this is not Algonkin theology ; nor is it at all related 
to that of the Iroquois. It is the story of Sarama in 
the Rig Yeda, and was written in Sanscrit, under 
the shadow of the Himalayas, centuries before 
Homer. 

Such uniformity points not to a common source in 
history, but in psychology. Man, chiefly cognizant 
of his existence through his senses, thought with an 
awful horror of the night which deprived him of the 
use of one and foreshadowed the loss of all. There- 



GOD IS LIGHT. 



187 



fore light and life were to him synonymous ; there- 
fore all religions promise to lead 
" From night to light, 

From night to heavenly light ; " 

therefore He who rescues is ever the Light of the 
World ; therefore it is said " to the upright ariseth 
light in darkness ; " therefore everywhere the kind- 
ling East, the pale Dawn, is the embodiment of his 
hopes and the centre of his reminiscences. Who 
shall say that his instinct led him here astray ? For 
is not, in fact, all life dependent on light ? Do not 
all those marvellous and subtle forces known to the 
older chemists as the imponderable elements, without 
which not even the inorganic crystal is possible, pro- 
ceed from the rays of light ? Let us beware of that 
shallow science so ready to shout Eureka, and reve- 
rently acknowledge a mysterious intuition here dis- 
played, which joins with the latest conquests of the 
human mind to repeat and emphasize that message 
which the Evangelist heard of the Spirit and declar- 
ed unto men, that " God is Light." 1 

Both these heroes, let it be observed, live in the 
uttermost east ; both are the mythical fathers of the 

1 '0 6fo; (j>uQ eaTL, The First Epistle General of John, i. 5. 
In curious analogy to these myths is that of the Eskimos of 
Greenland. In the beginning, they relate, were two brothers, 
one of whom said : " There shall be night and there shall be 
day, and men shall die, one after another." But the second 
said, " There shall be no day, but only night all the time, and 
men shall live forever." They had a long struggle, but here 
once more he who loved darkness rather than light was worsted, 
and the day triumphed. (Naclirichten von Gronland aiis einem 
Tagebuche vom Bischof Paul Ec/ede, p. 157 : Kopenhagen, 1790. 
The date of the entry is 1738.) 



188 THE SUPREME GODS OF TEE RED RACE. 



race. To the east, therefore, should these nations 
have pointed as their original dwelling place. This 
they did in spite of history. Cusic, Trho takes up 
the story of the Iroquois a thousand years before the 
Christian era, locates them first in the most eastern 
region they ever possessed ; while the Algonkins 
with one voice called those of their tribes living 
nearest the rising sun Abnakis, our ancestors at the 
east, or at the dawn ; literally our ivhite ancestors. 1 
I designedly emphasize this literal rendering. It 
reminds one of the white twin of Iroquois legend, 
and illustrates how the color white came to be inti- 
mately associated with the morning light and its 
beneficent effects. Moreover, color has a specific 
effect on the mind ; there is a music to the eye as 
well as to the ear ; and white, which holds all hues 
in itself, disposes the soul to all pleasant and ele- 
vating emotions. 2 Not fashion alone bids the bride 
wreathe her brow with orange flowers, nor was it a 
mere figure of speech that led the inspired poet to 
call his love " fairest among women," and to pro- 
phecy a Messiah "fairer than the children of men," 
fulfilled in that day when He appeared " in garments 
so white as no fuller on earth could white them." 

No nation is free from the power of this law. 
" White," observed Adair of the southern Indians, 

1 I accept without hesitation the derivation of this word, pro- 
posed and defended by that accomplished- Algonkin scholar, 
the Rev. Eugene Yetromile, from wanb, white or east, and 
naghi ancestors {The Abnakis arid their History, p. -29: Xew 
York, 1866). 

2 White light, remarks Goethe, has in it something cheerful 
and ennobling; it possesses " eine heitere. muntere, sanft 
reizende Eigenschaft." Farbenlehre, see's. 766, 770. 



THE PO WER OF WHITENESS. 



189 



" is their fixed emblem of peace, happiness, prosperity, 
purity, and holiness." 1 Their priests dressed in white 
robes, as did those of Peru and Mexico ; the kings 
of the various species of animals were all supposed 
to be white ; 2 the cities of refuge established as 
asylums for alleged criminals by the Cherokees in 
the manner of the Israelites were called " white 
-towns," and for sacrifices animals of this color were 
ever most highly esteemed. All these sentiments 
were linked to the dawn. Language itself is proof 
of it. Many Algonkin words for east, morning, dawn, 
day, light, as we have already seen, are derived from 
a radical signifying white. Or we can take a tongue 
nowise related, the Quiche, and find its words for 
east, dawn, morning, light, bright, glorious, happy, 
noble, all derived from zak, white. We read in their 
legends of the earliest men that they were " white 
children," " white sons," leading " a white life be- 
yond the dawn," and the creation itself is attributed 
to the Dawn, the White one, the White sacrificer of 
of Blood. 3 But why insist upon the point when in' 
European tongues we find the daj^break called Vaube^ 
alva, from albus, white ? Enough for the purpose if 
the error of those is manifest who, in such expres- 
sions, would seek support for any theory of ancient 

1 Hist, of the N. Am. Indians, p. 159. 

2 La Hontan, Voy. dans VAmer. Sept., ii. p. 42. 

3 " Blanco pizote," Ximenes, p. 4. Vocabulario QuicJiS, s. V. 
zal: In the far north the Eskimo tongue presents the same 
analogy. Day, morning', bright, light, lightning, all are from 
the same root (kau), signifying white (Richardson, Vocab. of 
Labrador Eskimo). So in Kidatsa, from hati, to grow light, come 
ohati white, amahati to shine, etc. (Matthews, Hidatsa Grammar). 



190 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



European immigration ; enough if it displays the 
true meaning of those traditions of the advent of be- 
nevolent visitors of fair complexions in ante-Colum- 
bian times, which both Algonkins and Iroquois 1 had 
in common with many other tribes of the western 
continent. Their explanation will not be found in 
the annals of Japan, the triads of the Cymric bards, 
nor the sages of Icelandic skalds, but in the propen- 
sity of the human mind to attribute its own origin 
and culture to that white-shining orient where sun, 
moon, and stars, are daily born in renovated glory, 
to that fair mother, who, at the cost of her own life, 
gives light and joy to the world, to the brilliant womb 
of Aurora, the glowing bosom of the Dawn. 

She is the common mother whom the western Es- 
kimos call Sidne, the daughter of their supreme be- 
ing Anguta, and from her proceeded all things having 
life, while her father made inorganic matter. 2 

The Salish, Nesquallies and Yakimas on the North- 
west Coast refer to her as " the daughter of the sun," 
the spouse of the primeval bird Yehl, the master of 
the winds, and appeal to her as mother of their race. 3 

In Haiti her name was Itaba-tahuana; she was a 
virgin who died in bringing into the world four 
brothers at a birth, who caused the Deluge, and mar- 
rying the four winds begat the nations of men. 4 

1 Some fragments of them may be found in Campanius, Acc. 
of New Sweden, 1650, book iii. cltap. 11, and in Byrd, The 
Westover Manuscripts, 1733, p. 82. They were in both instances 
alleged to have been white and bearded men, the latter probably 
a later trait in the legend. 

2 C. F. Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 571. 

3 M. Macfie, Vancouver's Island, &c, p. 454. 

4 D. G. Brinton, The Arawack Language, &c. p. 17. To the 



CON AND PACHAGAMA. 



191 



And thus she meets us from the equator to the 
pole. 

Even the complicated mythology of Peru yields to 
the judicious application of these principles of inter- 
pretation. Its peculiar obscurity arises from the policy 
of the Incas to blend the religions of conquered 
provinces with their own. Thus about 1350 the Inca 
Pachacutec subdued the country about Lima where 
the worship of Con and Pachacama prevailed.' The 
local myth represented these as father and son, or 
brothers, children of the sun. They were without 

student of mythology I would point out the similarity of thesi 
myths to those of the four dwarfs, Austri, Vestri, Sudri and 
Nordri, who support the sky, and the maiden Ostara (from whom 
comes our name of Easter Sunday), often associated with them 
in ancient German mythology. It is greatly to be regretted 
that the myth of Ostara remains so incomplete. 

1 Con or Can I have already explained to mean thundar, 
Con tici, the mythical thunder vase. Pachacama is doubtless, as 
M. Leonce Angrand has suggested, from ppacha, source, and 
camd, all, the Source of All things (Desjardins, Le Perou avnnt 
la Conq. Espagnole, p. 23, note). But he and all other writers 
have been in error in considering this identical with Pachacd- 
?nac, nor can. the latter mean creator of the vjorld, as it has con- 
stantly been translated. It is a participial adjective from 
pacha, place, especially the world, and camac, present participle 
of camani, I animate, from which also comes camakenc, the soul, 
and means animating the world. It was never used as a proper 
name. The following trochaic lines from the Quichua poem 
translated in the previous chapter, show its true meaning and 
correct accent: 

Pacha rurac, World creating. 

Pacha camac, World animating. 

Viracocha, Viracocha. 

Camasunqui, He animates thee. 

The last word is the second transition, present tense, of cam' 
ani, while camac is its present participle. 



192 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



flesh or blood, impalpable, invisible, and incredibly 
swift of foot. Con first possessed the land, but Pacha- 
cama attacked and drove him to the north. Irritated 
at his defeat he took with him the rain, and conse- 
quently to this day the sea-coast of Peru is iargely an 
arid desert. Xow when we are informed that the 
south wind, that, in other words, which blows to the 
north, is the actual cause of the aridity of the lowlands, 1 
and consider the light and airy character of these 
antagonists, we cannot hesitate to accept this as a 
myth of the winds. The name of Con tici, the Thun- 
der Yase, was indeed applied to Yiracocha in later 
times, but they were never identical. Yiracocha 
was the culture hero of the ancient Aymara-Quichua 
stock. He was more than that, for in their creed he 
was creator and possessor of all things. Lands and 
herds were assigned to other gods to support their 
temples, and offerings were heaped on their altars, 
but to him none. For, asked the Incas : 44 Shall the 
Lord and Master of the whole world need these things 
from us ? " 44 To him," says Acosta, 44 they did attribute 
the chief power and commandement over all things; " 
and elsewhere 44 in all this realm the chief idoll they 
did worship was Yiracocha, and after him the Sunne.*' 2 
Ere sun or moon was made, he rose from the bosom 
of Lake Titicaca. and presided over the erection of 
those wondrous cities whose ruins still dot its islands 
and western shores, and whose history is totally lost in 
the night of time. He himself constructed these lu- 
minaries and placed them in the sky, and then peopled 

1 Ulloa, Memoir es Philosophiques sur VAmerique, i. p. 105. 

2 Acosta, Hist, of the Xew World, bk. v. chap. 4, bk. vi. chap. 
19, Eng. trans., 1701. 



THE STORY OF VIRAGO CHA. 



193 



the earth with its present inhabitants. From the 
lake he journeyed westward, not without adventures, 
for he was attacked with murderous intent by the 
beings whom he had created. When, however, scorn- 
ing such unequal combat, he had manifested his power 
by hurling the lightning on the hill-sides and consum- 
ing the forests, they recognized their maker, and 
humbled themselves before him. He was reconciled, 
and taught them arts and agriculture, institutions and 
religion, meriting the title they gave him of Pachay- 
achacMc, teacher of all things. At last he disappear- 
ed in the western ocean. Four personages, companions 
or sons, were closely connected with him. The} r rose 
together with him from the lake, or else were his first 
creations. These are the four mythical civilizers of 
Peru, who another legend asserts emerged from the 
cave Pacarin tampu,the Lodgings of the Dawn. 1 To 
these Viracocha gave the earth, to one the north, to 
another the south, to a third the east, to a fourth the 
west. Their names are very variously given, but as 
they have already been identified with the four winds, 
we' can omit their consideration here. 2 Tradition, as 

1 The name is derived from tampu, corrupted by the Spaniards 
to tambo, an inn, and paccari morning, or paccarin, it dawns, 
which also has the figurative signification, it is born. It may 
therefore mean either Lodgings of the Dawn, or as the Spaniards 
usually translated it, House of Birth, or Production, Casa de 
Producimiento. 

2 The names given by Balboa (Hist, du Perou, p. 4) and 
Montesinos (Ancien Perou, p. 5) areManco, Cacha, Auca, Uchu. 
The meaning of Manco is unknown. The others signify, in 
their order, messenger, enemy or traitor, and the little one. The 
myth of Viracocha is given in its most antique form by Juan 
de Betanzos, in the Historia de los Ingas, compiled in the first 



1U THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



has rightly been observed by the Inca Garcilasso de 
la Vega, 1 transferred a portion of the story of Viracocha 
to Manco Capac, first of the historical Incas. King 
Manco, however, was a real character, the Rudolph 
of Hapsburg of their reigning family, and nourished 
about the eleventh century. 

There is a general resemblance between this story 
and that of Michabo. Both precede and create the 
sun, both journey to the west, overcoming opposition 
with the thunderbolt, both divide the world between 
the four winds, both were the fathers, gods, and 
teachers of their nations. Nor does it cease here. 
Michabo, I have shown, is the white spirit of the 
Dawn. Viracocha, all authorities translate " the fat 
or foam of the sea." The idea conveyed is of white- 
ness, foam being called fat from its color. 2 So true 
is this that to-day in Peru white men are called vira- 
cochas, and the early explorers constantly received 
the same epithet. 3 The name is a metaphor. The 
dawn rises above the horizon as the snowy foam on 
the surface of a lake. As the Algonkins spoke of 
the Abnakis, their white ancestors, as the Innuits 

years of the conquest from the original songs and legends. It is 
quoted in Garcia, Origen de los Indios, lib. v. cap. 7. Balboa, 
Montesinos, Acosta, and others have also furnished me some 
incidents. Whether Atachuchu mentioned in the last chapter 
was not another name of Viracocha may well be questioned. It 
is every way probable. Las Casas (Hist. Apol. de las Indias, 
cap. 125) gives the names of the two contestants as Conditi- 
Viracocha and his son Taguapica- Viracocha. 

1 Hist, des Incas, liv. iii. chap. 25. 

2 It is compounded of vira, fat, foam (which perhaps is akin to 
yurac, white), and cocha, a pond or lake. 

s See Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagnole, p. 67. 



THE MYTH OF Q UETZAL C OA TL. 



195 



assert the men first made were white but gave place 
to those of their own color, 1 as in Mexican legends 
the early Toltecs were of fair complexion, so the 
Aymaras sometimes called the first four brothers 
viracochas, white men. 2 It is the ancient story how 

« Light 

Sprung from the deep, and from her native east 
To journey through the airy gloom began." 

The central figure of Toltec mythology is Quetzal- 
coatl.' Not an author on ancient Mexico but has 
something to say about the glorious days when he 
ruled over the land. No one denies him to have 
been a god, the god of the air, highest deity of the 
Toltecs, in whose honor was erected the pyramid of 
Cholula, grandest monument of their race. But 
many insist that he was at first a man, some deified 
king. There were in truth many Quetzalcoatls, for 
his high priest always bore his name, but he himself 
is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged 
history is nothing but a myth. 

His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his 
rebus and cross at Palenque, I have already explained. 
Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, the air ; Yolcuat, 
the rattlesnake; Tohil, the rumbler; Huemac, the 
strong hand ; Nani he hecatle, lord of the four winds ; 
Tlaviz calpan tecutli, lord of the light of the dawn. 3 
The same dualism reappears in him that has been 

1 C. F. Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 5G6. These first men were 
called Kaudluna, from the root Kau, white, morning, etc. 

2 Gomara, Hist, de las Indias, cap. 119, in Miiller. 

3 " Propriamente es la primera claridad que aparecio en el 
mundo." Codex Teller iano-llemensis, p. 205. This codex ap- 
peared in the Archives Paleographiques. 



196 



THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



noted in his analogues elsewhere. He is both lord 
of the eastern light and the winds. 

As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land 
of Tula or Tlapallan, in the distant Orient, and was 
high priest of that happy realm. The morning star 
was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedi- 
cated to him expressly as the author of light. 1 As 
by days we measure time, he was the alleged inventor 
of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, he too 
was represented as of white complexion, clothed in 
long white robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with 
a full and flowing beard. 2 When his earthly work 
was done he too returned to .the east, assigning as a 
reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, demanded 
his presence. But the real motive was that he had 
been overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called 
Yoalliehecatl, the wind or spirit of night, who had de- 
scended from heaven by a spider's web and presented 
his rival with a draught pretended to confer immor- 
tality, but, in fact, producing uncontrollable longing 

1 Brasseur, Hist, de Mexique, i. p. 302. 

2 There is no reason to lay any stress upon this feature. 

Beard was nothing uncommon among the Aztecs and many 
other nations of the New World. It was held to add dignity to 
the appearance, and therefore Sahagun, in his description of 
the Mexican idols, repeatedly alludes to their beards, and Miiller 
quotes various authorities to show that the priests wore them 
long and full (Amer. Urreligionen, p. 429). Not only was Quet- 
zalcoatl himself reported to have been of fair complexion — white 
indeed — but the Creole historian Ixtlilxochitl says the old legends 
asserted that all the Toltecs, natives of Tollan, or Tula, as their 
name signifies, were so likewise. Still more, Aztlan, the tradi- 
tional home of the Nahuas, or Aztecs proper, means literally the 
white land, according to one of our best authorities (Buschmann, 

Ueber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, p. 612 : Berlin, 1852). 



THE MYTH OF QUETZALCOATL. 



197 



for home. For the wind and the light both depart 
when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds 
spread their dark and shadowy webs along the moun- 
tains, and pour the vivifying rain upon the fields. 

In his other character, he was begot of the breath 
of Tonacateotl, god of our flesh or subsistence, 1 or 
(according to Gomara) was the son of Iztac Mixcoatl, 
the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. 
It was he who created the world, and alone of the 
Aztec gods was supposed to possess a human body. 2 
Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rains, he was figuratively 
said to sweep the road for him, since, in that country, 
violent winds are the precursors of the wet seasons. 
Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore 
him company, emblems of the whistling breezes. 
When he finally disappeared in the far east, he sent 
back four trusty youths who had ever shared his 
fortunes, " incomparably swift and light of foot," 
with directions to divide the earth between them and 
rule it till he should return and resume his power. 
When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald 
proclaimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shout- 
ing, with such a mighty voice that it could be heard 
a hundred leagues around. The arrows which he 
shot transfixed great trees, the stones he threw 
levelled forests, and when he laid his hands on the 
rocks the mark was indelible. Yet as thus emblematic 
of the thunder-storm, he possessed in full measure its 

1 Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, v. p. 109. 

2 Codex Telleriano-Bemensix, p. 199. This authority calls 
the creator .Quetzalcoatl, " el primero," and distinguishes 
him from the " Quetzalcoatl de Tula, que es el quetonid nombre 
del primero Quetzalcoatl." p. 201. 



198 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE 



better attributes. By shaking his sandals he gave 
fire to men, and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his 
subjects. Tradition says he built many temples to 
Mictlanteuctli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the creation 
of the sun that he slew all the other gods, for the 
advancing dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, 
and yet all its vivifying power does but result in 
increasing the number doomed to fall before the 
remorseless stroke of death. 1 

His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, 
and the flint, representing the clouds, the lightning, 
the four winds, and the thunderbolt. Perhaps, as 
Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the earth- 
quakes. The Zapotecs worshipped such a deity under 
the image of this member carved from a precious 
stone, 2 calling to mind the " Kab ul," the Working 
Hand, adored by the Mayas, 3 and said to be one of 
the images of Zamna, their hero god. 4 The human 
hand, " that divine tool, "as it has been called, might 
well be regarded by the reflective mind as the teacher 
of the arts and the amulet whose magic power has 

1 The myth of Quetzalcoatl I have taken chiefly from Sahagun, 
Hist, de la Nueva Espaita, lib. i. cap. 5 ; lib. iii. caps. 3, 13, 14 ; 
lib. x. cap. 29; and Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 
24. It must be remembered that the Quiche legends identify 
him positively with the Tohil of Central America (Le Livre 
Sacre, p. 247). 

2 Pad ill a Davila, Hist, de la Prov. de Santiago de Mexico, lib. 
ii. cap. 89. 

3 Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib iv. cap. 8. 

* Zamna, not Votan, corresponded in the Maya pantheon to 
Michabo and his congeners. As M. de Charencey correctly says, 
4 ' Bien oppose a Votan. Zamna aurait tous les traits d'un genie 
atmospherique" (Le My the de Votan, p. 36). 



THE MYTH OF Q UETZALCOA TL. 



199 



won for man what vantage he has gamed in his long 
combat with nature and his fellows. 

I might next discuss the culture myth of the Muys- 
cas, whose hero Bochica or Nemqueteba bore the 
other name Sua, the White One, the Day, the. East, 
an appellation they likewise gave the Europeans on 
their arrival. He had taught them in remotest times 
how to manufacture their clothing, build their houses, 
cultivate the soil, and reckon time. When he disap- 
peared, he divided the land between four chiefs, and 
laid down many minute rules of government which 
ever after were religiously observed. 1 Or I might 
choose that of the Caribs, whose patron Tamu, called 
Grandfather, and Old Man of the Sky, was a man of 
light complexion, who in the old times came from the 
east, instructed them in agriculture and arts, and dis- 
appeared in the same direction, promising them as- 
sistance in the future, and that at death he would 
receive their souls on the summit of the sacred tree, 
and transport them safely to his home in the sky. 2 
Or from the more fragmentary mythology of ruder 

1 He is also called Idacanzas and Xemterequetaba. Some 
have maintained a distinction between Bochica and Sua, which, 
however, has not been shown. The best authorities on the 
mythology of the Muyscas are Piedrahita, Hist, de las Conq. del 
Nuevo Reyno de Granada, 1668 (who is copied by Humboldt, 
Vues des Cordillhes, pp. 246 sqq), and Simon, Noticias de Tierra 
Firme, Parte ii., in Kingsborough's Mexico. 

2 D'Orbigny, VHomme Americain, ii. p. 319, and Rochefort, 
Hist, des Isles Antilles, p. 482 (Waitz). The name has various 
orthographies, Tamu, Tamoi, Tamou, Itamoulou, Tamoin, mod- 
ern Tamuya, etc. Perhaps the Ama-livaca of the Orinoko 
Indians is another form. This personage corresponds even 
minutely in many points with the Tamu of the island Caribs. 



200 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



nations, proof might be brought of the well nigh 
universal reception of these fundamental views. As, 
for instance, when the Mandans of the Upper Mis- 
souri speak of their first ancestor as a son of the 
West, who preserved them at the flood, and whose 
garb was always of four milk-white wolf skins ; 1 and 
when the Pimos, a people of the valley of the Rio 
Gila, relate that their birthplace was where the sun 
rises, that there for generations they led a joyous life, 
until their beneficent first parent disappeared in the 
heavens. From that time, say they, God lost sight 
of them, and they wandered west, and further west 
till they reached their present seats. 2 Or I might 
instance the Tupis of Brazil, who were named after 
the first of men, Tupa, he who alone survived the 
flood, who was one of four brothers, who is described 
as an old man of fair complexion, un vieillard blanc? 
and who is now their highest divinity, maker of all 
things, 4 ruler of the lightning and the storm, whose 

1 Catlin, Letters and Notes, Letter 22. 

2 Journal of Capt. Johnson, in Emory, Reconnoissance of New 
Mexico, p. 601. 

3 M. De Charencey, in the Revue Americaine, ii. p. 317. Tupa 
it may be observed means in Quichua, lord or royal. Father 
Holguin gives as an example a tupa Dios, 0 Lord God {Vocabu- 
lario Quichua, p. 348 : Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608). In the 
Quiche dialects tepeu is one of the common appellations of di- 
vinity and is also translated lord or ruler. We are not yet suffi- 
ciently advanced in the study of American philology to draw 
any inference from these resemblances, but they should not be 
overlooked. 

4 " II a fait tout ' ' (Le Pere Ives d'Evreux, Hist, de Marignan, 
p. 280). Another Tupi myth is that of Timandonar and Ari- 
coute. They were brothers, one of fair complexion, the other 
dark. They were constantly struggling, and Aricoute, which 



THE MYTH OF TUP A. 



201 



voice is the thunder, and who is the guardian of their 
nation. But is it not evident that these and all such le- 
gends are but variations of those already analyzed? 

In thus removing one by one the wrappings of 
symbolism, and displaying at the centre and summit 
of these various creeds He who is throned in the 
sky, who comes with the dawn, who manifests him- 
self in the light and the storm, and whose ministers 
are the four winds, I set up no new god. The ancient 
Israelites prayed to him who was seated above the 
firmament, who commanded the morning and caused 
the day-spring to know its place, who answered out 
of the whirlwind, and whose envoys were the four 
winds, the four cherubim described with such wealth 
of imagery in the introduction to the book of Ezekiel. 
The Mahometan adores "the clement and merciful 
Lord of the Daybreak," whose star is in the east, 
who rides on the storm, and whose breath is the 
wind. The primitive man in the New World also 
associated these physical phenomena as products of 
an invisible power, conceived under human form, 
called by name, worshipped as one, and of whom all 
related the same myth differing but in unimportant 
passages. This was the primeval religion. It was not 
monotheism, for there were many other gods ; it was 
not pantheism, for there was no blending of the cause 
with the effects ; still less was it fetichism, an adora- 
tion of sensuous objects, for these were recognized as 
effects. It teaches us that the idea of God neither 
arose from the phenomenal world nor was sunk in 
it, as is the shallow theory of the day, but is as 

means the cloudy or stormy day, came out worst. See Denis, 
Une Fete Bresilienne, etc., p. 88. 



202 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



Kant long ago defined it, a conviction of a highest 
and first principle which binds all phenomena into one. 

One point of these legends deserves closer attention 
for the influence it exerted on the historical fortunes 
of the race. The dawn heroes were conceived as of 
fair complexion, mighty in war, and though absent 
for a season, destined to return and claim their ancient 
power. Here was one of those unconscious prophe- 
cies, pointing to the advent of a white race from the 
east, that wrote the doom of the red man in letters 
of fire. Historians have marvelled at the instanta- 
neous collapse of the empires of Mexico, Peru, the 
Mayas, and the Natchez, before a handful of Spanish 
filibusters. The fact was, wherever the whites 
appeared they were connected with these ancient 
predictions of the spirit of the dawn returning to 
claim his own. Obscure and ominous prophecies, 
" texts of bodeful song," rose in the memory of the 
natives, and paralyzed their arms. 

" For a very long time," said Montezuma, at his 
first interview with Cortes, " has it been handed down 
that we are not the original possessors of this land, 
but came hither from a distant region under the 
guidance of a ruler who afterwards left us and never 
returned. We have ever believed that some day 
his descendants would come and resume dominion 
over us. Inasmuch as you are from that direction, 
which is toward the rising of the sun, and serve so 
great a king as you describe, we believe that he is 
also our natural lord, and are ready to submit our- 
selves to him." 1 

The gloomy words of Nezahualcoyotl, a former 

i Cortes, Carta Primera, pp. 113, 114. 



PROPHECIES OF HEATHENDOM. 



203 



prince of Tezcuco, foretelling the arrival of white 
and bearded men from the east, who would wrest 
the power from the hands of the rightful rulers and 
destroy in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing 
in his ears. But they were not so gloomy to the 
minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that day was 
to liberate them from the thralls of servitude. There- 
fore when they first beheld the fair complexioned 
Spaniards, they rushed into the water to embrace 
the prows of their vessels, and dispatched messen- 
gers throughout the land to proclaim the return of 
Quetzalcoatl. 1 

The noble Mexican was not alone in his presenti- 
ments. When Hernando de Soto on landing in Peru 
first met the Inca Huascar, the latter related an 
ancient prophecy which his father, Huayna Capac, 
had repeated on his dying bed, to the effect that in 
the reign of the thirteenth Inca, white men (yiraco- 
cIicls) of surpassing strength and valor would come 
from their' father the Sun and subject to their rule 
the nations of the world. " I command you," said 
the dying monarch, "to yield them homage and obedi- 
ence, for they will be of a nature superior to ours." 2 

The natives of Haiti told Columbus of similar pre- 
dictions long anterior to his arrival. 3 The Mary- 
land Indians said the whites were an old generation 
revived, who had come back to kill their nation and 
take their places. 4 And Father Lizana has preserved 
in the original Maya tongue several such foreboding 

1 Sahagun, Hht. de la Nueva Espana, lib. xii. caps. 2, 3. 

2 La Vega, Hist des Incas, lib. ix. cap. 15. 

3 Peter Martyr, De Reh. Oceanicis, Dec. iii. lib. vii. 

4 Bio ines, /State of his Maj. Terr., p. 199. 



204 THE SUPREME GODS OF THE BED RACE. 



chants. Doubtless he has adapted them somewhat 
to proselytizing purposes, but they seem very likely 
to be close copies of authentic aboriginal songs, refer- 
ring to the return of Zanina or Kukulcan, lord of the 
dawn and the four winds, worshipped at Cozumel 
and Palenque under the sign of the cross. An ex-' 
tract will show their character : — 

"At the close of the thirteenth Age of the world, 
While the cities of Itza and Tancah still nourish, 
The sign of the Lord of the Sky -will appear, 
The light of the dawn will illumine the land, 
And the cross will be seen by the nations of men. 
A father to you, will Ha be, Itzalanos, 
A brother to you, ye natives of Tancah ; 
Receive well the bearded guests who are coming, 
Bringing the sign of the Lord from the daybreak, 
Of the Lord of the Sky, so clement yet powerful. , ' 1 

The older writers, Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagu- 
tierre, have taken pains to collect other instances of 
this presentiment of the arrival and domination of a 
race. Later white historians, fashionably incredulous 
of what they cannot explain, have passed them over in 
silence. That they existed there can be no doubt, 
and that they arose in the way I have stated, is almost 
proven by the fact that in Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, 
the whites were at once called from the proper names 

1 Lizana. Hist, de Xuestra SeTiora de Itzamal, lib. ii. cap. i. in 
Brasseur. Hist, de Mexique. ii. p. 605. The prophecies are of 
the priest who bore the title — not name — chVan ba^am, and whose 
offices were those of divination and astrology. The verse claims 
to date from about 1450, aud was very well known throughout 
Yucatan, so it is said. The number thirteen which in many of 
these prophecies is the supposed limit of the present order of 
things, is doubtless derived from the observation that thirteen 
moons complete one solar year. 



THE HOPES OF A REDEEMER 



205 



of the heroes of the Dawn, Suas, Viracoehas, and Quet- 
zcdcoatls. 

"When the church of Rome had crushed remorse- 
lessly the religions of Mexico and Peru, all hope of 
the return of Quetzalcoatl and Yiracocha perished 
with the institutions of which they were the mythi- 
cal founders. But it was only to arise under new 
incarnations and later names. As well forbid the 
heart of youth to bud forth in tender love, as that of 
oppressed nationalities to cherish the fai Lh that some 
ideal hero, some royal man, will yet arLc, and break 
in fragments their fetters, and lcr^d them to glory 
and honor. 

When the name of Quetzalcoatl was no longer 
heard from the teocalli of Cholula, that of Monte- 
zuma took its place. From ocean to ocean, and from 
the river Gila to the Nicaraguan lake, nearly every 
aboriginal nation still cherishes the memory of Mon- 
tezuma, not as the last unfortunate ruler of a vanish- 
ed state, but as the prince of their golden era, their 
Saturnian age, lord of the winds and waters, and 
founder of their institutions. When, in the depth 
of the tropical forests, the antiquary disinters some 
statue of earnest mien, the natives whisper one to 
the other, " Montezuma ! Montezuma ! " 1 In the le- 
gends of New Mexico he is the founder of the pueblos, 
and intrusted to their guardianship the sacred fire. 
Departing, he planted a tree, and bade them w^atch 
it well, for when that tree should fall and the fire 
die out, then he would return from the far East, and 
lead his loyal people to victory and power. When 

i Squier, Travels in Nicaragua, ii. p. 35. 



206 



THE SUPREME GODS OF THE RED RACE. 



the present generation saw their land glide, mile by 
mile, into the rapacious hands of the Yankees — when 
new and strange diseases desolated their homes — 
finally, when in 1816 the sacred tree was prostrated, 
and the guardian of the holy fire was found dead on 
its cold ashes, then they thought the hour of deliver- 
ance had come, and every morning at earliest dawn 
a watcher mounted to the house-tops, and gazed long 
and anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry 
the noble form of Montezuma advancing through 
the morning beams at the head of a conquering 
army. 1 

Groaning under the iron rule of the Spaniards, the 
Peruvians would not believe that the last of the 
Incas had perished an outcast and a wanderer in the 
forests of the Cordilleras. For centuries the} r clung 
to the persuasion that he had but retired to another 
mighty kingdom beyond the mountains, and in due 
time would return and sweep the haughty Castilian 
back into the ocean. In 1781, a mestizo, Jose Gab- 
riel Condorcanqui, of the province of Tinta, took 
advantage of this strong delusion, and binding 
around his forehead the scarlet fillet of the Incas, 
proclaimed himself the long lost Inca Tupac Amaru, 
and a true child of the sun. Thousands of Indians 
flocked to his standard, and at their head he took 

1 Whipple, Report on the Lid. Tribes, p. 36. Emory, Recon. 
of New Mexico, p. 6i. The latter adds that among the Pueblo 
Indians, the Apaches, and ISTavajos, the name of Montezuma is 
" as familiar as Washington to us." This is the more curious 
as neither the Pueblo Indians nor either of the other tribes is in 
any way related to the Aztec race by language, as has been shown 
by Dr. Buschmann, Die Voelker and Sprachen Neu Mexico's, p. 
262. 



THE HOPES OF A REDEEMER. 



207 



the field, vowing the extermination of every soul 
of the hated race. Seized at last by the Spaniards, 
and condemned to a public execution, so profound 
was the reverence with which he had inspired his 
followers, so full their faith in his claims, that, unde- 
terred by the threats of the soldiery, they prostrated 
themselves on their faces before this last of the chil- 
dren of the sun, as he passed on to a felon's death. 1 
These fancied reminiscences, these unfounded 
hopes, so vague, so child-like, let no one dismiss them 
as the babblings of ignorance. Contemplated in 
their broadest meaning as characteristics of the race 
of man, they have an interest higher than any history, 
beyond that of any poetry. They point to the recog- 
nized discrepancy between what man is, and what 
he feels he should be, must be ; they are the indig- 
nant protests of the race against acquiescence in the 
world's evil as the world's law ; they are the incohe- 
rent utterances of those yearnings for nobler condi- 
tions of existence, which no savagery, no ignorance, 
, nothing but a false and lying enlightenment can 
wholly extinguish. 

i Humboldt, Essay on New Spain, bk. ii, chap, vi., Eng. 
trans.; Ansichten derNatur^ ii, pp, 357, 386, 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE MYTHS OF THE CREATION, THE DELUGE, THE 
EPOCHS OF XATUEE, AXD THE LAST DAY. 

Cosmogonies usually portray the action of the Spirit on the Waters.— 
Those of the Muscogees, Athapascas, Quiche's, Mixtecs, Iroquois, Al- 
gonkins, and others.— The Flood-Myth an unconscious attempt to re- 
concile a creation in time with the eternity of matter.— Proof of this 
from American mythology.— Characteristics of American Flood-Myths. 
— The person saved usually the first man. — The number seven. — Their 
Ararats. — The role of birds. — The confusion of tongues. — The Aztec, 
Quiche, Algonkin, Tupi, and earliest Sanscrit flood myths. — The belief 
in Epochs of Xature a further result of this attempt at reconciliation. — 
Its forms among Peruvians, Mayas, and Aztecs. — The expectation of the 
End of the World a corollary of this belief. — Views of various nations. 



OULD the reason rest content with the belief 



that the universe always was as it now is, it 
would save much beating of brains. Such is the 
comfortable condition of the Eskimos, the Rootdig- 
gers of California, the most brutish specimens of hu- 
manity everywhere. Yain to inquire their story of 
creation, for, like the knife-grinder of anti- Jacobin 
renown, they have no story to tell. It never occur- 
red to them that the earth had a beginning, or un- 
derwent any greater changes then those of the sea- 
sons. 1 But no sooner does the mind begin to reflect 

1 So far as this applies to the Eskimos, it might be questioned 
on the authority of Paul Egede, whose valuable Naclirichten 
von Gronland contains several flood-myths, &e. But these Eski- 




THE MYTH OF CREATION. 



209 



the intellect to employ itself on higher themes than 
the needs of the body, than the law of casualty ex- 
erts its power, and the man, out of such materials as 
he has at hand, manufactures for himself a Theory 
of Things. 

What these materials were has been shown in the 
last few chapters. A simple primitive substance, a 
divinity to mould it — these are the requirements of 
every cosmogony. Concerning the first no nation 
ever hesitated. All agree that before time began 
water held all else in solution, covered and concealed 
everything. The reasons for this assumed priority 
of water have been already touched upon. Did a 
tribe dwell near some great sea others can be im- 
agined. The land is limited, peopled, stable; the 
ocean fluctuating, waste, boundless. It insatiably 
swallows all rains and rivers, quenches sun and moon 
in its dark chambers, and raves against its bounds 
as a beast of prey. Awe and fear are the sentiments 
it inspires ; in Aryan tongues its synonyms are the 
desert and the night. 1 It produces an impression of 
immensity, infinity, formlessness, and barren change- 
ableness, well suited to a notion of chaos. It is sterile, 
receiving all things, producing nothing. Hence the 
necessity of a creative power to act upon it, as it 
were to impregnate its barren germs. Some cosmo- 

mos had had for generations intercourse with European mission- 
aries and sailors, and as the other tribes of their stock were 
singularly devoid of corresponding traditions, it is likely that 
in Greenland they were of foreign origin. 

1 Pictet, Origines Indo-Europe'ennes inMichelet, La Mer. The 
latter has many eloquent and striking remarks on the impres- 
sions left by the great ocean. 



210 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



gonies find this in one, some in another personifica- 
tion of divinity. Commonest of all is that of the 
wind, or its emblem the bird, types of the breath of 
life. 

Thus the venerable record in Genesis, translated 
in the authorized version "and the Spirit of God 
moved on the face of the waters," may with equal 
correctness be rendered " and a mighty wind brooded 
on the surface of the waters," presenting the picture 
of a primeval ocean fecundated by the wind as a 
bird. 1 The eagle that in the Finnish epic of Kale- 
wala floated over the waves and hatched the land, the 
egg that in Chinese legend swam hither and thither 
until it grew to a continent, the giant Ymir, the 
rustler (as wind in trees), from whose flesh, says the 
Edda, our globe was made and set to float like a 
speck in the vast sea between Muspel and Mflheim, 
all are the same tale repeated by different nations in 
different ages. But why take illustrations from the 
old world when they are so plenty in the new. 

Before the creation, said the Muscogees, a great 
body of water was alone visible. Two pigeons flew 
to and fro over its waves, and at last spied a blade of 
grass rising above the surface. Dry land gradually 
followed, and the islands and continents took their 
present shapes. 2 Whether this is an authentic abori- 
ginal myth, is not beyond question. No such doubt 
attaches to that of the Athapascas. With singular 

1 " Spiritus Dei incubuit superficei aquarum" is the transla- 
tion of one writer. The word for spirit in Hebrew, as in Latin, 
originally meant wind, as I have before remarked. 

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i. p. 266. 



THE MYTH OF CREATION. 



211 



unanimity, most of the northwest branches of this 
stock trace their descent from a raven, " a mighty bird, 
whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightning, 
and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On 
his descent to the ocean the earth instantly rose, and 
remained on the surface of the water. This om- 
nipotent bird then called forth all the variety of 
animals." 1 

Very similar, but with more of poetic finish, is the 
legend of the Quiches : — 

" This is the first word and the first speech. There 
were neither men nor brutes ; neither birds, fish, nor 
crabs, stick nor stone, valley nor mountain, stubble 
nor forest, nothing but the sky. The face of the land 
was hidden. There was naught but the silent sea 
and the sky. There was nothing joined, nor any 
sound, nor thing that stirred ; neither any to do evil, 
nor to rumble in the heavens, nor a walker on foot ; 
only the silent waters, only the pacified ocean, only 
it in its calm. Nothing was but stillness, and rest, 
and darkness, and the night ; nothing but the Maker 
and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird-Serpent. In the 
waters, in a limpid twilight, covered with green 
feathers, slept the mothers and fathers." 2 

Over this passed Hurakan, the mighty wind, and 
called out Earth ! and straightway the solid land was 
there. 

The picture writings of the Mixtecs preserved 

1 Mackenzie, Hist, of the Fur Trade, p. 83; Eichardson, Arctic 
Expedition, p. 236. 

2 Ximenes, Or. de los Ind. de Guat., pp. 5-7. I translate 
freely, following Ximenes rather than Brasseur. 



212 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 

a similar cosmogony : " In the year and in the day 
of clonds, before ever were either years or days, the 
world lay in darkness ; all things were orderless, and 
a water covered the slime and the ooze that the earth 
then was." By the efforts of two winds, called, from 
astrological associations, that of Nine Serpents and 
that of Nine Caverns, personified one as a bird and 
one as a winged serpent, the waters subsided and the 
land dried. 1 

In the birds that here play such conspicuous parts, 
we cannot fail to recognize the winds and the clouds; 
but more especially the dark thunder clouds, soaring 
in space at the beginning of things, most forcible em- 
blem of the aerial powers. They are the symbols of 
that divinity which acted on the passive and sterile 
waters, the fitting result being the production of a 
universe. Other symbols of the divine could also be 
employed, and the meaning remain the same. Or were 
the fancy too helpless to suggest any, they could be 
dispensed with, and purely natural agencies take their 
place. Thus the unimaginative Iroquois narrated 
that when their primitive female ancestor was kicked 
from the sky by her irate spouse, there was as yet no 
land to receive her, but that it "suddenly bubbled up 
under her feet, and waxed bigger, so that ere long a 
whole country was perceptible." 2 Or that certain 
amphibious animals, the beaver, the otter, and the 
muskrat, seeing her descent, hastened to dive and 
bring up sufficient mud to construct an island for her 
residence. 3 The muskrat is also the simple machinery 

1 Garcia, Or. de los Indies, lib. v. cap. 4. 

2 Doc. Hist, of New York, iv. p. 130 (circ. 1650). 

3 Rel. de la Nouv. France, An. 1G38, p. 101, 



ORIGIN OF THE FLOOD MYTH. 



213 



in the cosmogony of the Takahlis of the northwest 
coast, the Osages and some Algonkin tribes. 

These latter were, indeed, keen enough to perceive 
that there was really no creation in such an account. 
Dry land was wanting, but earth was there, though 
hidden by boundless waters. Consequently, they 
spoke distinctly of the action of the muskrat in 
bringing it to the surface as a formation only. 
Michabo directed him, and from the mud formed 
islands and main land. But when the subject of 
creation was pressed, they replied they knew nothing 
of that, or roundly answered the questioner that he 
was talking nonsense. 1 Their myth, almost identical 
with that of their neighbors, was recognized by them 
to be not of a construction, but a reconstruction only ; 
a very judicious distinction, but one which has a 
most important corollary. A reconstruction sup- 
poses a previous existence. This they felt, and had 
something to say about an earth anterior to this of 
ours, but one without light or human inhabitants. A 
lake burst its bounds and submerged it wholly. This 
is obviously nothing but a mere and meagre fiction, 
invented to explain the origin of the primeval ocean. 
But mark it well, for this is the germ of those mar- 
vellous myths of the Epochs of Nature, the catastro- 
phes of the universe, the deluges of water and of fire, 
which have laid such strong hold on the human fancy 
in every land and in every age. 

The purpose for which this addition was mad^-to 
the simpler legend is clear enough. It was to avoid 
the dilemma of a creation from nothing on the one 

1 Rel. de la Nouv. France, An. 1634, p. 13. 



214 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



hand, and the eternity of matter on the other. Ex 
nihilo nihil is an apothegm indorsed alike by the 
profonndest metaphysicians and the rudest savages. 
But the other horn was no easier. To escape accept- 
ing the theory that the world has ever been as it 
now is, was the only object of a legend of its forma- 
tion. As either lemma conflicts with fundamental 
laws of thought, this escape was eagerly adopted, 
and in the suggestive words of Prescott, men "sought 
relief from the oppressive idea of eternity by break- 
ing it up into distinct cycles or periods of time." 1 
Vain but characteristic attempt of the ambitious 
mind of man ! The Hindoo philosopher reconciles 
to his mind the suspension of the world in space by 
imagining it supported by an elephant, the elephant 
by a tortoise, and the tortoise by a serpent. We 
laugh at the Hindoo, and fancy we diminish the diffi- 
culty by explaining that it revolves around the sun, 
and the sun around some far-off star. Just so the 
general mind of humanity finds some satisfaction in 
supposing a world or a series of worlds anterior to 
the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of 
creation by removing it indefinitely in time. 

The support lent to these views by the presence of 
marine shells on high lands, or by faint reminiscences 
of local geologic convulsions, I estimate very low. 
Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by noth 
ing short of a miracle could they preserve the remem- 
brance of even the most terrible catastrophe beyond 
a few generations. Nor has any such occurred 
within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to 
make a very permanent or wide-spread impression. 

1 Conquest of Mexico, i. p. 61. 



THE AMERICAN FLOOD MYTHS. 



215 



Not physics, but metaphysics, is the exciting cause 
of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the globe. 
The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of 
time, and time and eternity are contradictory terms. 
Common words show this connection. World, for 
example, in the old language waereld, from the root 
to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm). 

In effect, a myth of creation is nowhere found 
among primitive nations. It seems repugnant to 
their reason. Dry land and animate life had a begin- 
ning, but not matter. A series of constructions and 
demolitions may conveniently be supposed for these. 
The analogy of nature, as seen in the vernal flowers 
springing up after the desolation of winter, of the 
sapling sprouting from the fallen trunk, of life every- 
where rising from death, suggests such a view. 
Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, elabo- 
rated by ancient philosophers into the Cycles of the 
Stoics, the Great Days of Brahm, long periods of 
time rounded off by sweeping destructions, the Cata- 
clysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some 
thought in these all beings perished ; others that a 
few survived. 1 This latter and more common view 
is the origin of the myth of the deluge. How fa- 

1 For instance, Epictetus favors the opinion that at the sol- 
stices of the great year not only all human beings, but even the 
gods., are annihilated; and speculates whether at such times 
Jove feels l©nely (Discourses, bk. iii. chap. 13). Macrobius, 
so far from coinciding with him, explains the great antiquity of 
Egyptian civi'ization by the hypothesis that, that country is so 
happily situated between the pole and equator, as to escape 
both the deluge and conflagration of the great cycle. (Somnium 
Scipionis, lib. ii. cap. 10.) 



216 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



miliar such speculations were to the aborigines of 
America there is abundant evidence to show. 

The early Algonkin legends do not speak of an 
antediluvian race, nor of any family who escaped the 
waters. Michabo, the spirit of the dawn, their 
supreme deity, alone existed, and by his power form- 
ed and peopled it. Nor did their neighbors, the 
Dakotas, though firm in the belief that the globe 
had once been destroyed by the waters, suppose that 
any had escaped. 1 The same view was entertained 
by the Nicaraguans 2 and the Botocudos of Brazil. 
The latter attributed its destruction to the moon 
falling to the earth from time to time. 3 

Much the most general opinion, however, was that 
some few escaped the desolating element by one of 
those means most familiar to the narrator, by ascend- 
ing some mountain, on a raft or canoe, in a cave, or 
even by climbing a tree. No doubt some of these 
legends have been modified by Christian teachings ; 
but many of them are so connected with local pecu- 
liarities and ancient religious ceremonies, that no un- 
biased student can assign them wholly to that source, 
as Professor Vater has done, even if the authorities 
for many of them were less trustworthy than they 
are. There are no more common heirlooms in the 
traditional lore of the red race. Nearly every old 
author quotes one or more of them. They pre- 
sent great uniformity of outline, and rather than 
engage in repetitions of little interest, they can be 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, iii. p. 263, iv. p. 230. 

2 Oviedo, Hist, du Nicaragua, pp. 22, 27. 

3 Miiller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 254, from Max arid Denis. 



THE AMERICAN FLOOD MYTHS. 



217 



more profitably studied in the aggregate than in 
detail. 

By far the greater number represent the last de- 
struction of the world to have been by water. A few, 
however, the Takahlis of the North Pacific coast, the 
Yurucares of the Bolivian Cordilleras, and the Mbo- 
cobi of Paraguay, attribute it to a general confla- 
gration which swept over the earth, consuming every 
living thing except a few who took refuge in a deep 
cave. 1 The more common opinion of a submersion 
gave rise to those traditions of a universal flood so 
frequently recorded by travellers, and supposed by 
many to be reminiscences of that of Noah. 

There are, indeed, some points of striking similar- 
ity between the deluge myths of Asia and America. 
It has been called a peculiarity of the latter that in 
them the person saved is always the first man. This, 
though not without exception, is certainly the gen- 
eral rule. But these first men were usually the high- 
est deities known to their nations, the only creators 
of the world, and the guardians of the race. 2 

Moreover, in the oldest Sanscrit legend of the flood 
in the Zatapatha Brahmana, Manu is also the first 
man, and by his own efforts creates offspring. 3 

1 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 310 ; D' Orbigny, 
Frag, d'un Voyage dans V Am 'er. Merid., p. 512. 

2 When, as in the case of one of the Mexican Noahs, Coxcox, 
this does not seem to hold good, it is probably owing to the 
loss of the real form of the myth. 

3 My knowledge of the Sanscrit form of the flood-myth is 
drawn principally from the dissertation of Professor Felix Neve, 
entitled La Tradition Indienne du Deluge dans sa Forme la plus 
ancienne, Paris, 1851. There is in the oldest versions no dis- 



218 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY . 



A later Sanscrit work assigns to Manu the seven 
Richis or shining ones as companions. Seven was 
also the number of persons in the ark with Noah. Cu- 
riously enough one Mexican and one early Peruvian 
myth give out exactly seven individuals as saved in 
their floods. 1 This coincidence arises from the 
mystic powers attached to the number seven, derived 
from its frequent occurrence in astrology. Proof of 
this appears by comparing the later and the older 
versions of this myth, either in the book of Genesis, 
where the latter is distinguished by the use of the 
word Elohim for Jehovah, 2 or the Sanscrit account 
in the Zatapatha Brahman a with those in the later 
Puranas. 3 In both instances the number seven 
hardly or at all occurs in the oldest version, while it 
is constantly repeated in those of later dates. 

In Oriental astrology the seven planets are sup- 
posed to have conferred this sacredness on the heptacl. 
In America it was the Pleiades. Gumilla informs 
us that the Orinoco tribes computed their year from 
the period these stars rise at sunset. 4 Father Vene- 
gas says of a nation of California that they rever- 
ence the seven stars to such a degree that to look at 

tinct reference to an antediluvian race, and in India Manu is 
by co: anion consent the Adam as well as the Noah of the le- 
gends. 

1 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, i. p. 88 ; Codex Vaticanus, No. 
3776, in Kingsborough. 

2 And also various peculiarities of style and language lost in 
translation. The two accounts of the Deluge are given side by 
side in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible under the word Pen- 
tateuch. 

3 See the dissertation of Prof. Neve referred to above. 

4 Hist. del. Orinoco, ii. p. 28b 



THE AMERICAN ARARATS. 219 

them carelessly is calamitous. 1 Their culmination 
dated the commencement of the Mexican year. "With 
the Peruvians they were worshipped as first of the 
starry host. 2 

As the mountain or rather mountain chain of Ara- 
rat was regarded with veneration wherever the Se- 
mitic accounts were known, so in America heights 
were pointed out with becoming reverence as those 
on which the few survivors of the dreadful scenes of 
the deluge were preserved. On the Red River near 
the village of the Caddo es was one of these, a small 
natural eminence, " to which all the Indian tribes for 
a great distance around pay devout homage," accord- 
ing to Dr. Sibley. 3 The Cerro Naztarny on the Rio 
Grande, the peak of Old Zufii in New Mexico, that 
of Colhuacan on the Pacific Coast, Mount Apoala in 
Upper Mixteca, and Mount Neba in the province of 
Guaymi, are some of many elevations asserted by the 
neighboring nations to have been places of refuge 
for their ancestors when the fountains of the great 
deep broke forth. 

One of the Mexican traditions related by Torque- 
mada identified this with the mountain of Tlaloc in 
the terrestrial paradise, and added that one of the 
seven demigods who escaped commenced the pyramid 
of Cholula in its memory. He intended that its 
summit should reach the clouds, but the gods, angry 
at his presumption, drove away the builders with 
lightning. This has a suspicious resemblance to 

1 Hist of California, p. 107. 

2 Balboa, Hist, de PSrou, pp. 57-8. 

3 American State Papers. Indian Affairs, i. p. 729. Date of 
legend, 1801. 



220 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 

Bible stories. Equally fabulous "was the retreat of 
the Araucauians. It was a three-peaked mountain 
which had the property of floating on water, called 
Theg-Theg, the Thunderer. This they believed 
would preserve them in the next as it did in the last 
cataclysm, and as its only inconvenience was that it 
approached too near the sun, they always kept on 
hand wooden bowls to use as parasols. 1 

The intimate connection that once existed between 
the myths of the deluge and those of the creation is 
illustrated by the part assigned to birds in so many 
of them. They fly to and fro over the waves ere any 
land appears, though they lose in great measure the 
significance of bringing it forth, attached to them in 
the cosmogonies as emblems of the divine spirit. 
The dove in the Hebrew account appears in that of 
the Algonkins as a raven, which Michabo sent out 
to search for land before the muskrat brought it to 
him from the bottom. A raven also in the Athapas- 
can myth saved their ancestors from the general 
flood, and in this instance it is distinctly identified 
with the mighty thunder bird, who at the beginning 
ordered the earth from the depths. Prometheus-iike, 
it brought fire from heaven, and saved them from a 
second death by cold. 2 Precisely the same benefi- 
cent actions were attributed by the Natchez to the 
small red cardinal bird, 3 and by the Mandans and 
Cherokees an active participation in the event was 
assigned to wild pigeons. The Navajos and Aztecs 
thought that instead of being drowned by the waters 

" 1 Molina, Hist, of Chili, ii. p. 82. 

2 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 239. 

3 Dumont, Mems. Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. p. 163. 



THE BIRD SYMBOL. 



221 



the human race were transformed into birds and thus 
escaped. In all these and similar legends, the bird is 
a relic of the cosmogonal myth which explained the 
origin of the world from the action of the winds, 
under the image of the bird, on the primeval ocean. 

The Mexican Codex Vaticanus No. 3738 represents 
after the picture of the deluge a bird perched on the 
summit of a tree, and at its foot men in the act of 
marching. This has been interpreted to mean that 
after the deluge men were dumb until a dove distrib- 
uted to them the gift of speech. The New Mexican 
tribes related that all except the leader of those who 
escaped to the mountains lost the power of utterance 
by terror, 1 and the Quiches that the antediluvian 
race were "puppets, men of wood, without intelli- 
gence or language." These stories, so closely re- 
sembling that of the confusion of tongues at the 
tower of Babel or Borsippa, are of doubtful authen- 
ticity. The first is an 'entirely erroneous interpreta- 
tion, as has been shown by Senor Ramirez, director 
of the Museum of Antiquities at Mexico. The name 
of the bird in the Aztec tongue was identical with 
the word departure, and this is its signification in the 
painting. 2 

Stories of giants in the days of old, figures of 
mighty proportions looming up through the mist of 
ages, are common property to every nation. The 
Mexicans and Peruvians had them as well as others, 
but their connection with the legends of the flood 
and the creation is incidental and secondary. Were 
the case otherwise, it would offer no additional point 

1 Schoolcraft, huh Tribes, v. p. G86. 

2 Desjardins, Le Perou avant la Conq. Espagn., p. 27, 



222 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY 

of similarity to the Hebrew myth, for the word ren- 
dered giants in the phrase, " and there were giants in 
those days," has no snch meaning in the original. 
It is a blunder which crept into the Septuagint, and 
has been cherished ever since, along with so many 
others in the received text. 

A few specimens will serve as examples of all these 
American flood myths. The Abbe Brasseur has 
translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca, a work 
in the Nahuatl language of Ancient Mexico, written 
about half a century after the conquest- It is as 
follows : — 

" And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the 
first day all was lost. The mountain itself was sub- 
merged in the water, and the water remained tranquil 
for fifty-two springs. 

44 Xow towards the close of the year, Titlahuan 
had forewarned the man named Nata and his wife 
named Xena, saying, 4 Make no more pulque, but 
straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it 
when in the month Tozoztli the water shall approach 
the sky.' They entered it, and when Titlacahuan 
had closed the door he said, 4 Thou shalt eat but a 
single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.' 

44 As soon as they had finished [eating], they went 
forth and the water was tranquil ; for the log did not 
move any more ; and opening it they saw many fish. 

44 Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of 
wood, and they roasted the fish. The gods Citlalli- 
nicue and Citlallatonac looking below exclaimed, 
* Divine Lord, what means that fire below? Why 
do they they thus smoke the heavens? ' 

44 Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipoca. 



THE QUICHE FLOOD-MYTH. 



223 



and commenced to scold, saying, ' What is this fire 
doing here ? ' And seizing the fishes he moulded their 
hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were 
at once transformed into dogs." 1 

That found in the oft quoted legends of the Quiche's 
is to this effect : — 

" Then by the will of the Heart of Heaven the 
waters were swollen and a great flood came upon the 
manikins of wood. For they did not think nor speak 
of the Creator who had created them, and who had 
caused their birth. They were drowned, and a thick 
resin fell from heaven. 

** The bird Xecotcovach tore out their eyes ; the 
bird Camulatz cut off their heads ; the bird Cotzbalam 
devoured their flesh; the bird Tecumbalam broke 
their bones and sinews, and ground them into pow- 
der." 2 

" Because they had not thought of their Mother 
and Father, the Heart of Heaven, whose name is 
Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark 
and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, rain- 
ing by night. 

" Then all sorts of beings, little and great, gath- 
ered together to abuse the men to their faces ; and all 
spoke, their mill-stones, their plates, their cups, their 
dogs, their hens. 

" Said the dogs and hens, 4 Very badly have you 

1 Cod. Chimalpopoca, in Brasseur, Hist, du Mexique, Pieces 
Justificatives. 

2 These four birds, whose names have lost their signification, 
represent doubtless the four winds, or the four rivers, which, as 
in so many legends, are the active agents in overwhelming the 
world in its great crises. 



224 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 

treated us, and you have bitten us. Now we bite 
you in turn.' 

M Said the mill-stones, 4 Very much were we tor- 
mented by you, and daily, daily, night and day, it 
was squeak, squeak, screech, screech, for your sake. 
Now yourselves shall feel our strength, and we will 
grind your flesh, and make meal of your bodies,' said 
the mill-stones. 1 

" And this is what the dogs said, c Why did you 
not give us our food ? No sooner did we come near 
than you drove us away, and the stick was always 
within reach when you were eating, because, forsooth, 
Ave were not able to talk. Now we will use our teeth 
and eat you,' said the dogs, tearing their faces. 

"And the cups and dishes said, 4 Pain and misery 
you gave us, smoking our tops and sides, cooking us 
over the fire, burning and hurting us as if we had no 
feeling. ' Now it is your turn, and you shall burn,' 
said the cups insultingly. 

" Then ran the men hither and thither in despair. 
They climbed to the roofs of the houses, but the 
houses crumbled under their feet; they tried to 
mount to the tops of the trees, but the trees hurled 
them far from them : they sought refuge in the cav- 
erns, but the caverns shut before them. 

1 The word rendered mill-stone, in the original means those 
larged hollowed stones on which the women were accustomed to 
bruise the maize. The imitative sounds for which I have sub- 
stituted others in English, are in Quiche. ho?i,7wli, huqui,huqui. 

2 Brasseur translates " quoique nous ne sentissions rien," but 
Ximenes " nos quemasteis, y sentimos el dolor." As far as I 
can make out the original, it is the negative conditional as 1 
have given it in the text. 



THE ALGONKIN FLOOD-MYTH. 



225 



" Thus was accomplished the ruin of this race, 
destined to be destroyed and overthrown ; thus were 
they given over to destruction and contempt. And 
it is said that their posterity are those little monkeys 
who live in the woods/' 1 

The Algonkin tradition has often been referred to. 
Many versions of it are extant, the oldest and most 
authentic of which is that translated from the Mon- 
tagnais dialect by Father Le Jeune, in 1634. 

" One day as Messou was hunting, the wolves which 
he used as dogs entered a great lake and were detained 
there. 

" Messou looking for them everywhere, a bird said 
to him, 4 1 see them in the middle of this lake.' 

" He entered the lake to rescue them, but the lake 
overflowing its banks covered the land and destroyed 
the world. 

" Messou, very much astonished at this, sent out 
the raven to find a piece of earth wherewith to re- 
build the land, but the bird could find none ; then he 
ordered the otter to dive for some, but the animal 
returned empty; at last he sent down the muskrat, 
who came back with ever so small a piece, which how- 
ever was enough for Messou to form the land on 
which we are. 

" The trees having lost their branches, he shot ar- 
rows at their naked trunks which became their limbs, 
revenged himself on those who had detained his 
wolves, and having married the muskrat, by it peopled 
the world." 

Finally ma}^ be given the meagre legend of the 

1 Le Livre SacrS, p. 27; Ximenes, Or. de los Indios, p. 13. 
15 



226 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



Tupis of Brazil, as heard by Hans Staclen, a prisoner 
among them about 1550, and Coreal, a later voyager. 
Their ancient songs relate that a long time ago a 
certain very powerful Mair, that is to say, a stranger, 
who bitterly hated their ancestors, compassed their 
destruction by a violent inundation. Only a very 
few succeeded in escaping — some by climbing trees, 
others in caves. When the water subsided the 
remnant came together, and by gradual increase pop- 
ulated the world. 1 

Or, it is given by an equally ancient authority as 
follows : — 

" Monan, without beginning or end, author of all 
that is, seeing the ingratitude of men, and their con- 
tempt for him who had made them thus joyous, 
withdrew from them, and sent upon them tata, the 
divine fire, which burned all that was on the surface 
of the earth. He swept about the fire in such a way 
that in places he raised mountains, and in others dug 
valleys. Of all men one alone, Irin Mage, was saved, 
whom Monan carried into the heaven. He seeing 

1 The American nations amoug whom a distinct and well au- 
thenticated myth of the deluge was found are as follow : Atha- 
pascas, Algonkins, Iroquois, Cherokees, Chikasaws, Caddos, 
Natchez, Dakotas, Apaches, Navajos, Mandans, Pueblo Indians, 
Aztecs, Mix tecs, Zapotecs, Tlascalans, Mechoacans, Toltecs, 
Nahuas, Mayas, Quiches, Haitians, natives of Darien andPopo- 
yan, Muyscas, Quichuas, Tuppinambas, Achaguas, Araucanians, 
and doubtless others. The article by M. de Charencey in the 
Revue Americaine, Le Deluge, d'apres les Traditions Indiennes 
de VAmerique du Nord, contains some valuable extracts, but is 
marred by lack of criticism of sources, and makes no attempt 
at analysis, nor offers for their existence a rational explana- 
tion. 



THE TUPI FLOOD-MYTH. 



227 



all things destroyed, spoke thus to Monan : 4 Wilt 
thou also destroy the heavens and their garniture ? 
Alas ! henceforth Where will be our home ? Why 
should I live, since there is none other of my kind ? ' 
Then Monan was so filled with pity that he poured a 
deluging rain on the earth which quenched the fire, 
and flowing from all sides, formed the ocean, which 
we called parana, the great waters." 1 

In these narratives I have not attempted to soften 
the asperities nor conceal the childishness which run ) 
through them. But there is no occasion to be aston- 
ished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them 
any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of 
their authors and believers. We can go back to the 
cradle of our own race in Central Asia, and find tra- 
ditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from 
adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great 
occurrence, as it is handed down to us in ancient San- 
scrit literature. It will be seen that it is little, if at 
all, superior to those just rehearsed. 

" Early in the morning they brought to Manu 
water to wash himself ; when he had well washed, a 
fish came into his hands. 

44 It said to him these words : 4 Take care of me ; I 
will save thee.' 4 What wilt thou save me from ? ' 
' A deluge will sweep away all creatures ; I wish thee 
to escape.' 4 But how shall I take care of thee ? ' 

44 The fish said : 4 While we are small there is more 

1 Une Fete Brisilienne celebre a Rouen en 1550, par M. Ferdi- 
nand Denis, p. 82. The native words in this account guarantee 
its authenticity. In the Tupi language, tata, means fire ; parana, 
ocean ; Monan, from mond to construct, to build. The original 
authority is Thevet. 



228 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAT. 



than one danger of death, for one fish swallows an- 
other. Thou must, in the first place, put me in a 
vase. Then, when I shall exceed it in size, thou 
must dig a deep ditch, and place me in it. When I 
grow too large for it, throw me in the sea, for I shall 
then be beyond the danger of death.' 

" Soon it became a great fish ; it grew, in fact, as- 
tonishingly. Then it said to Manu, s In such a year 
the Deluge will come. Thou must build a vessel, 
and then pay me homage. When the waters of the 
Deluge mount up, enter the vessel. I will save 
thee.' ' 

" When Manu had thus taken care of the fish, lie 
put it in the sea. The same year that the fish had said, 
in this very year, having built the vessel, he paid the 
fish homage. Then the Deluge mounting, he enter- 
ed the vessel. The fish swam near him. To its 
horn Manu fastened the ship's rope, with which the 
fish passed the Mountain of the North. 

u The fish said: 'See! I have saved thee. Fasten 
the vessel to a tree, so that the water does not float 
thee onward when thou art on the mountain top. As 
the water decreases, thou wilt descend little by little.' 
Thus Manu descended gradually. Therefore to the 
mountain of the north remains the name, Descent of 
Manu. The Deluge had destroyed all creatures ; 
Manu survived alone." 1 

Hitherto I have spoken only of the last convulsion 
which swept over the face of the globe, and of but 
one cycle which preceded the present. Most of the 
more savage tribes contented themselves with this, 

1 Professor Neve, ubi supra, from the Zatapatha Bralimana. 



THE EPOCHS OF NATURE. 



229 



but it is instructive to observe how, as they advanced 
in culture, and the mind dwelt more intently on the 
great problems of Life and Time, they were impelled 
to remove further and further the dim and mysterious 
Beginning. The Peruvians imagined that two de- 
structions had taken place, the first by a famine, the 
second by a flood — according to some a few only 
escaping — but, after the more widely accepted opin- 
ion, accompanied by the absolute extirpation of the 
race. Three eggs which dropped from heaven 
hatched out the present race ; one of gold, from which 
came the priests ; one of silver, which produced the 
warriors ; and the last of copper, source of the com- 
mon people. 1 

The Mayas of Yucatan increased the previous 
worlds by one, making the present the fourth. Two 
cycles had terminated by devastating plagues. They 
were called " the sudden deaths," for it was said so 
swift and mortal was the pest, that the buzzards and 
other foul birds dwelt in the houses of the cities, and 
ate the bodies of their former owners. The third 
closed either by a hurricane, which blew from all 
four of the cardinal points at once, or else, as others 

1 Avendano, Sermones, Lima, 1648, in Rivero and Tschudi, 
Peruv. Antiqs., p. 114. In the year 1600, Onate found, on the 
coast of California a tribe whose idol held in one hand a shell 
containing three eggs, in the other an ear of maize, while before 
it was placed a cup of water. Vizcaino, who visited the same 
people a few years afterwards, mentions that they kept in their 
temples tame ravens, and looked upon them as sacred birds. 
(Torquemada, Mon. Ind., lib. v. cap. 40 in Waltz). Thus, in all 
parts of the continent do w 7 e find the bird, as a symbol of the 
clouds, associated with the rains and the harvests. 



230 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



said, by an inundation, which swept across the world, 
swallowing all things in its mountainous surges. 1 

As might be expected, the vigorous intellects of 
the Aztecs impressed upon this myth a fixity of out- 
line nowhere else met with on the continent, and 
wove it intimately into their astrological reveries and 
religious theories. Unaware of its prevalence under 
more rudimentary forms throughout the continent, 
Alexander von Humboldt observed that, " of all the 
traits of analogy which can be pointed .out between 
the monuments, manners, and traditions of Asia and 
America, the most striking is that offered by the 
Mexican mythology in the cosmogonical fiction of 
the periodical destructions and regenerations of the 
universe." 2 Yet it is but the same fiction that ex- 
isted elsewhere, somewhat more definitely outlined. 
There exists great discrepancy between the different 
authorities, both as to the number of Aztec ages or 
Suns, as they were called, their durations, their ter- 
minations, and their names. The preponderance of 
testimony is in favoT of four antecedent cycles, the 
present being the fifth. The interval from the first 
creation to the commencement of the present epoch, 
owing to the equivocal meaning of the numeral signs 
expressing it in the picture writings, may have been 
either 15228, 2316, or 1101 solar years. Why these 

1 The deluge was called hun yecil, which according to Cogol- 
ludo, means the inundation of the trees, for all the forests were 
swept away (Hist, de Yucatlian, lib. iv. cap. 5). Bishop Landa 
adds, to substantiate the legend, that all the woods of the penin- 
sula appear as if they had been planted at one time, and that to 
look at them one would say they had been trimmed with scissors. 
(Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, 58, 60.) 

2 Flies des Cordilleres., p. 202. 



THE AZTEC SUNS. 



201 



numbers should have been chosen, no one has guessed. 
It has been looked for in combinations of numbers 
connected with the calendar, but so far in vain. 

While most authorities agree as to the character 
of the destructions which terminated the suns, they 
vary much as to their sequence. Water, winds, fire, 
and hunger, are the agencies, and in one Codex (Vati- 
canus) occur in this order. Gama gives the sequence, 
hunger, winds, fire, and water; Humboldt, hunger, 
fire, winds, and water.; Boturini, water, hunger, 
winds, fire. As the cycle ending by a famine is 
called the Age of Earth, Ternaux-Compans, the 
distinguished French Americaniste, has imagined 
that the four Suns correspond mystically to the 
domination exercised in turn over the world by its 
four constituent elements. But proof is wanting 
that Aztec philosophers knew the theory on which 
this explanation reposes. 

Baron Humboldt suggested that the suns were 
" fictions of mythological astronomy, modified either 
by obscure reminiscences of some great revolution 
suffered by our planet, or by physical hypotheses, 
suggested by the sight of marine petrifactions and 
fossil remains ; " 1 while the AbbC Brasseur, in his 
works on ancient Mexico, interprets them as exagge- 
rated references to historical or geological events. 
As no solution can be accepted not equally appli- 
cable to the same myth as it appears in Yucatan, 
Peru, and the hunting tribes, and to the parallel 
teachings of the Yoluspa, the Stoics, the Celts, and 
the Brahmans, both of these must be rejected. 



i Ubi sup., p. 207. 



232 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



And although the Hindoo legend is so close to the 
Aztec that it, too, defined four ages, each termina- 
ting by a general catastrophe, and each catastrophe 
exactly the same in both, 1 yet this is not at all indica- 
tive of a derivation from one original, but simply an 
illustration how the human mind, under the stimu- 
lus of the same intellectual cravings, produces like 
results. What the cravings are has already been 
shown. 

The reason for adopting four ages, thus making the 
present the fifth, probably arose from the sacredness 
of that number in general ; but directly, because 
this was the number of secular days in the Mexican 
week. A parallel is offered by the Hebrew narative. 
In it six epochs or days precede the seventh or pres- 
ent cycle, in which the creative power rests. This 
latter corresponded to the Jewish Sabbath, the day 
of repose ; and in the Mexican calendar each fifth 
day was also a day of repose, employed in marketing 
and pleasure. 

Doubtless the theory of the Ages of the world 
was long in vogue among the Aztecs before it re- 
ceived the definite form in which we now have it ; 
and as this was acquired long after the calendar was 
fixed, it is every way probable that the latter was 
used as a guide to the former. Echevarria, a good 
authority on such matters, says the number of the 
Suns was agreed upon at a congress of astrologists, 

1 At least this is the doctrine of one of the Shastas. The race, 
it teaches, has been destroyed four times; first by -water, sec- 
ondly by winds, thirdly the earth swallowed them, and lastly 
fire consumed them. (Sepp, Heidenthum und Christerilhum, i. p. 
191.) 



THE AZTEC SUNS. 



233 



within the memory of a tradition. 1 Now in the cal- 
endar, these signs occnr in the order, earth, air, 
water, fire, corresponding to the days distinguished 
by the symbols house, rabbit, reed, and flint, This 
sequence, commencing with Tochtli (rabbit, air), 
is that given as that of the Suns in the Codex 
Chimalpopoca, translated by Brasseur, though it 
seems a taint of European teaching when it is 
added that on the seventh day of the creation man 
was formed. 2 

Neither Jews nor Aztecs, nor indeed any American 
nation, appear to have supposed, with some of the 
old philosophers, that the present was an exact repe- 
tition of previous cycles, 3 but rather that each was 
an improvement cn the preceding, a step in endless 
progress. Nor did either connect these beliefs with 
astronomical reveries of a great year, defined by the 
return of the heavenly bodies to one relative position 
in the heavens. The latter seems characteristic of 
the realism of Europe, the former of the idealism of 
the Orient ; both inconsistent with the meagre as- 
tronomy and more scanty metaphysics of the red race. 

The expectation of the end of the world is a nat- 
ural complement to the belief in its periodical de- 
structions. As at certain times past the equipoise of 

1 Echevarria y Veitia, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. i. cap. 4, 
in Waitz. 

2 Brasseur, t[ist. du Mex'que, iii. p. 495. 

3 The contrary has indeed been inferred from such expressions 
of the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes as , " that which hath 
been is now, and that which is to be, hath already been " (chap, 
iii. 15), and the like, but they are susceptible of an application 
entirely subjective. 



234 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 

nature was lost, and the elements, breaking the chain 
of laws that bound them, ran riot over the universe, 
involving all life in one mad havoc and desolation, 
so in the future we have to expect that day of doom, 
when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but over- 
whelm the continents with their mountainous billows 
or the lire, now chafing in volcanic craters and smok- 
ing springs, will leap forth on the forests and grassy 
meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of 
flame, and melting the very elements with fervid heat. 
Then, in the language of the Norse prophetess, 
" shall the sun grow dark, the land sink in the wa- 
ters, the bright stars be quenched, and high flames 
climb heaven itself." 1 These fearful forebodings 
have cast their shadow on every literature. The 
seeress of the north does but paint in wilder colors 
the terrible pictures of Seneca, 2 and the sibyl of the 
capitol only re-echoes the inspired predictions of 
Malachi. Well has the Christian poet said : — 

Dies irse, dies ilia, 
Solvet saeclum in favilla, 
Teste David cum Sibyla. 

Savage races, isolated in the impenetrable forests 
of another continent, could not escape this fearful 
looking for of destruction to come. It oppressed 
their souls like a weight of lead. On the last night 
of each cycle of fifty-two years, the Aztecs extin- 
guished every fire, and proceeded, in solemn proces- 
sion, to some sacred spot. Then the priests, with 
awe and trembling, sought to kindle a new fire by 

1 Voluspa, xiv. 51. 

2 Natur. Qucestiones, iii. cap. 27. 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



235 



friction. Momentous was the endeavor, for did it 
fail, their fathers had taught them on the morrow- 
no sun would rise, and darkness, death, and the 
waters would descend forever on this beautiful 
world. Quetzalcoatl, he who had made it, would 
destroy it. 1 

The same terror inspired the Peruvians at every 
eclipse, for some day, taught the Amautas, the 
shadow will veil the sun forever, and land, moon, and 
stars will be wrapt in a devouring conflagration to 
know no regeneration ; or a drought will wither 
every herb of the field, suck up the waters, and 
leave the race to perish to the last creature ; or the 
moon will fall from her place in the heavens and 
involve all things in her own ruin, a figure of speech 
meaning that the waters would submerge the land. 2 
In that dreadful day, thought the Algonkins, when 
in anger Michabo will send a mortal pestilence to 
destroy the nations, or, stamping his foot on the 
ground, flames will burst forth to consume the habit- 
able land, only a pair, or only, at most, those who 
have maintained inviolate the institutions he ordain- 
ed, will he protect and preserve to inhabit the new 
world he will then fabricate. Therefore they do 
not speak of this catastrophe as the end of the world, 
but use one of those nice grammatical distinctions 
so frequent in American aboriginal languages, and 
which can only be imitated, not interpreted, in ours, 

1 Codex Tell.-Remensis, p. 199. Such expressions should 
place beyond all doubt the purely mythical character of 
Quetzalcoatl. 

2 Velasco, Hist, du Royaume du Quito, p. 105; Navarrete, 
Viages, iii. p. 444. 



236 MYTHS OF CREATION, DELUGE, AND LAST DAY. 



signifying " when it will be near its end," " when it 
will no longer be available for man.'' 1 

An ancient prophecy handed down from their 
ancestors warns the TTinneba^oes that their nation 
shall be annihilated at the close of the thirteenth 
generation. Ten have already passed, and that now 
living has appointed ceremonies to propitiate the 
powers of heaven, and mitigate its stern decree. 2 
Well may they be abont it, for there is a gloomy 
probability that the warning came from no false 
prophet. Few tribes were destitute of such presenti- 
ments. The ChikasawSjthe Mandans of the Missouri, 
the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, the Muyscas of 
Bogota, the Botocudos of Brazil, the Araucanians of 
Chili, have been asserted on testimony that leaves no 
room for scepticism, to have entertained such fore- 
bodings from immemorial time. Enough for the 
purpose if the list is closed with the prediction of a 
Maya priest, cherished by the inhabitants of Yucatan 
long before the Spaniard desolated their stately cities. 
It is one of those preserved by Father Lizana, cure 
of Itzamal, and of which he gives the original. 
Other witnesses inform us that this nation " had a 
tradition that the world would end," 3 and probably, 
like the Greets and Aztecs, they supposed the gods 
would perish with it. 

" At the close of the ages, it hath been decreed, 
Shall perish and vanish each weak god of men, 
And the world shall be purged with a ravening fire. 

1 Rel. de la Nouv. France, An. 1637, p. 54. Schoolcraft, Ind. 
Tribes, i. p. 319, iv. p. 420. 

2 Schoolcraft, ibid. , iv. p. 240. 

3 Cogolludo, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 7. 



THE END OF THE WORLD. 



237 



Happy the man in that terrible day, 

Who bewails with contrition the sins of his life, 1 

And meets without flinching the fiery ordeal." 

1 The Spanish of Lizana is — 

" En la ultima edad, segun esta determinado, 
Avra fin el culto de dioses vanos ; 
Y el mundo sera purificado con fuego. 
El que esto viere sera llamado dichoso 
Si con dolor llorare sus pecados." 

(Hist, de Nuestra Senora de Itzamal, in Brasseur, Hist, du 
Mexique, ii. p. 603.) I have attempted to obtain a more literal 
rendering from the original Maya, but have not been successful. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE OKIGEtf OF MAX. 



Usually man is the Earth-born, both in language and myths. — Illustra- 
tions from the legends of the Caribs, Apalachians, Iroquois, Quichuas, 
Aztecs, and others. — The underworld. — Man the product of oue of the 
primal creative powers, the Spirit, or the Water, in the myths of the 
Athapascas, Eskimos, Moxos, and others. — Xever literally derived from 
an inferior species . 



O man can escape the importunate question, whence 



* am I ? The first replies framed to meet it possess 
an interest to the thoughtful mind, beyond that of 
mere fables. They illustrate the position in creation 
claimed by our race, and the early workings of self- 
consciousness. Often the oldest terms for man are 
synopses of these replies, and merit a more than pass- 
ing contemplation. 

The seed is hidden in the earth. Warmed by the 
sun, watered by the rain, presently it bursts its dark 
prison-house, unfolds its delicate leaves, blossoms, 
and matures its fruit. Its work done, the earth 
draws it to itself again, resolves the various struc- 
tures into their original mould, and the unending 
round recommences. 

This is the marvellous process that struck the prim- 
itive mind. Out of the Earth rises life, to it it 
returns. She it is who guards all germs, nourishes 
all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with 
countless breasts, the Peruvians called her Mama 
Allpa, mother Earth ; in the Algonkin tongue the 
words for earth, mother, father, are from the same 




THE WORD FOR MAN. 



239 



root. 1 Homo, Adam, cliamaigenes, what clo all these 
words mean but the earth-born, the son of the soil, 
repeated in the poetic language of Attica in anthropos, 
he who springs up as a flower ? 

The word that corresponds to the Latin homo in 
American languages has such singular uniformity in 
so many of them that we might be tempted to regard 
it as a fragment of some ancient and common tongue, 
their parent stem. In the Eskimo it is inuk, innuk, 
plural innuit ; in Athapasca it is dinni, tenne ; in Al- 
gonkin, inini, lenni, inwi ; in Iroquois, onwi, eniha ; 
in the Otomi of Mexico n-aniehe ; in the Maya, inic, 
winic, winah ; all in North America, and the num- 
ber might be extended. Of these only the last men- 
tioned can plausibly be traced to a radical (unless 
the Iroquois onwi is from onnha life, onnlie to live). 
This Father Ximenes derives from win, meaning to 
grow, to gain, to increase, 2 in which the analogy to 
vegetable life is not far off, an analogy strengthened 
by the myth of that stock which relates that the first 
of men were formed of the flour of maize. 3 

1 See Mr. Trumbull's note to Roger Williams' Key into the 
Languages of America, p. 50. 

2 Vocabulario Quiche, s. v., ed. Lrasseur, Paris, 1862. 

3 The Eskimo innuk, man, means also a possessor or owner; 
the yelk of an egg ; and the pus of an abscess (Egede, Nach- 
ricliten von Grbnland, p. 100). From it is derived innuwoh, to 
live, life. Probably innuk also means the semen masculinum, 
and in its identification with pus, may not there be the solution 
of that strange riddle which in so many myths of the West In- 
dies and Central America makes the first of men to be "the 
purulent one?" (See ante, p. 141.) Minho in Otchipwe means 
" I have a running abscess, " and also " I bringforth, I produce, 
beget." Baraga, Otchipwe Diet. s. V. 



240 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 



In many other instances religious legend carries 
out this idea. The mythical ancestor of the Caribs 
created his offspring by sowing the soil with stones 
or with the fruit of the Mauritius palm, which 
sprouted forth into men and women/ while the 
Yurucares, much of whose mythology was perhaps 
borrowed from the Peruvians, clothed this crude 
tenet in a somewhat more poetic form, fabling that 
at the beginning the first of men were pegged, Ariel ■ 
like, in the knotty entrails of an enormous bole, until 
the god Tiri — a second Prospero — released them by 
cleaving it in twain. 2 

As in oriental legends the origin of man from the 
earth was veiled under the story that he was the pro- 
geny of some mountain fecundated by the embrace 
of Mithras or Jupiter, so the Indians often pointed to 
some height or some cavern, as the spot whence the 
first of men issued, adult and armed, from the womb 
of the All-mother Earth. The oldest name of the 
Alleghany Mountains is Paemotinck or Pemolnick, 
an Algonkin word, the meaning of which is said to be 
" the origin of the Indians." 3 

1 Miiller, Artier. Urrelig., pp. 109, 22.9. 

2 D'Orbigny, Frag. cVune Voy. dans V Amir. Merid., p. 512. 
It is still a mooted point whence Shakspeare drew the plot of 
The Tempest. The coincidence mentioned in the text between 
some parts of it and South American mythology does not stand 
alone. Caliban, the savage and brutish native of the island, is 
undoubtedly the word Carib, often spelt Caribani, and Calibani 
in older writers ; and his " dam's god Setebos " was the supreme 
divinity of the Patagonians when first visited by Magellan. 
(Pigafetta, Viaggio intorno al Globo, Germ. Trans.: Gotha, 
1801, p. 2 17.) 

3 Both Lederer and Jolm Bartram assign it this meaning. 



THE HOLY HILL. 



241 



The Witchitas, who dwelt on the Red River among 
the mountains named after them, have a tradition 
that their progenitors issued from the rocks about 
their homes ; 1 the Blackfoot legends point for the 
origin of their clans to Nina Stahu, " chief of moun- 
tains," a bold square-topped peak of the Rocky 
mountains near the great inland lake Omaxeen ; 
and many other tribes, the Takahlis, Navajos, Coyo- 
teras, and the Haitians, for instance, set up this 
claim to be autochthones. Most writers have inter- 
preted this simply to mean that they know nothing 
at all about their origin, or that they coined these 
fables merely to strengthen the title to the territory 
they inhabited when they saw the whites eagerly 
snatching it away on every pretext. No doubt there 
is some truth in this, but if they be carefully sifted, 
there is sometimes a deep historical significance in 
these myths, which has hitherto escaped the observa- 
tion of students. An instance presents itself in our 
own country. 

All those tribes, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, 
Chicasaws, and Natchez, who, according to tradi- 
tion, were in remote times banded into one common 
confederacy, unanimously located their earliest an- 
cestry near an artificial eminence in the valley of 
the Big Black River, in the Natchez country, whence 
they pretended to have emerged. Fortunately we 
have a description, though a brief one, of this inter- 
esting monument from the pen of an intelligent trav- 

Gallatin gives in the Powhatan dialect the word for mountain as 
jpomottinke, doubtless another form of the same. 
1 Marcy, Exploration of the Red River, p. 69. 

16 



242 



THE ORIGIN OF MAX. 



eller. It is described as " an elevation of earth 
abont half a mile square and fifteen or twenty feet 
high. From its northeast corner a wall of equal 
height extends for near half a mile to the highland." 
This was the Xunne Chaha or Xunne Hamo'eh, the 
High Hill, or the Bending Hill (properly Xanih 
waiya, sloping hill), famous in Choctaw stories, and 
which Captain Gregg found they have not yet for- 
gotten in their western home. The legend was that in 
its centre was a cave, the house of the. Master of 
Breath. Here he made the first men from the clay 
around him, and as at that time the waters covered 
the earth, he raised the wall to dry them on. When 
the soft mud had hardened into elastic flesh and firm 
bone, he banished the waters to their channels and 
beds, and gave the dry land to his creatures. 1 

A parallel to this southern legend occurs among 
the Six Nations of the north. They with one con- 
sent, if we may credit the account of Cusic, looked 
to a mountain near the falls of the Oswego River in 
the State of Xew York, as the locality where their 
forefathers first saw the light of day, and that they 
had some such legend the name Oneida, people of 
the Stone, would seem to testify. 

1 Compare Romans. Hist, of Florida, pp. 58, 71; Adair, Hist, 
of the Noi'th Am. Indians, p. 195^ and Gregg, Commerce of the 
Pra'ries. ii. p. 235. The description of the mound is by Major 
Heart, in the Trans, of the Am. Pldlos. Soc., iii. p. 216. (1st 
series.) The Muskokees call this mountain rvne-em-melcl;o, 
King of mountains, and ehvnvlwe-em-mekko, King of the land 
or of the world. In its summit was located " the mouth of the 
earth," and from it "a great fire blazed upward and made a 
singing noise." See D. G. Brinton, The National Legend of tlie 
Chahta 31 u lolee Tribes, pp. 7, 10. 



THE SEVEN CAVERNS. 



243 



The cave of Pacari Tampu, the Lodgings of the 
Dawn, or the Place of Birth, was five leagues distant 
from Cuzco, surrounded by a sacred grove and in- 
closed with temples of great antiquity. From its 
hallowed recesses the mythical civilizers of Peru, the 
first of men, emerged, and in it during the time of 
the flood, the remnants of the race escaped the fury 
of the waves. 1 Viracocha himself is said to have 
dwelt there, though it hardly needed this evidence 
to render it certain that this consecrated cavern is 
but a localization of the general myth of the dawn 
rising from the deep. It refers us for its prototype 
to the Quichua allegory of the morning light fling- 
ing its beams like snow-white foam athwart the waves 
of Lake Titicaca. 

An ancient legend of the Aztecs derived their 
nation from a place called Chicomoztoc, the Seven 
Caverns, located north of Mexico. Antiquaries have 
indulged in all sorts of speculations as to what this 
means. Sahagun explains it as a valley so named ; 
Clavigero supposes it to have been a city ; Hamilton 
Smith, and after him Schoolcraft, construed caverns 
to be a figure of speech for the boats in which the 
early Americans paddled across from Asia (!) ; the 
Abbe Brasseur confounds it with Aztlan, and very 
many have discovered inat a distinct reference to the 
fabulous " seven cities of Cibola " and the Casas 
Grandes, ruins of large buildings of unburnt brick in 
the valley of the River Gila. From this story arose 
the supposed sevenfold division of the Kahuas, a 
division which never existed except in the imagina- 

1 Balboa, Hist, du Perou, p. 4. 



244 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 



tion of Europeans. When Torquemada adds that 
seven hero gods ruled in Chicomoztoc and -were the 
progenitors of all its inhabitants, when one of them 
turns out to be Xelhua, the giant who with six others 
escaped the flood by ascending the mountain of Tlaloc 
in the terrestrial paradise and afterwards built the 
pyramid of Cholula, and when we remember that in 
one of the flood-myths seven persons were said to have 
escaped the waters ; further, when we find in Quiche 
legend the parallel story of Tulanzu, the Seven Cav- 
erns, from which proceeded the four primeval men, the 
four winds, 1 the whole narrative acquires a fabulous 
aspect that shuts it out from history, and brands it as 
one of those fictions of the origin of man from the 
earth so common to the race. Fictions, yet truths ; 
for caverns and hollow trees were in fact the houses 
and temples of our first parents, and from them they 
went forth to conquer and adorn the world ; and 
from the inorganic constituents of the soil acted on 
by Light, touched b}^ Divine Force, vivified by the 
Spirit, did in reality the first of men proceed. 

This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the mem- 
ories of nations, occasionally expanded to a nether 
world imagined to underlie this of ours, and still 
inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never been 
lucky enough to discover its exit. The Mandans and 
Minnetarees on the Missouri River supposed this exit 
was near a certain hill in their territory, and as it 
had been, as it were, the womb of the earth, the same 
power was attributed to it that in ancient times en- 
dowed various shrines with such charms ; and thither 

1 Ximenes, Or.de los Indios, p. 1S6. 



THE MYTH OF THE UNDERWORLD. 



245 



the barren wives of their nation made frequent 
pilgrimages when they would become mothers. 1 The 
Mandans added the somewhat puerile fable that the 
means of ascent had been a grapevine, by which 
many ascended and descended, until one day an im- 
moderately fat old lady, anxious to get a look at the 
upper earth, broke it with her weight, and prevented 
any further communication. 

Such tales of an under-world are very frequent 
among the Indians, and are a very natural outgrowth, 
of the literal belief that the race is earth-born. * 

Man is indeed like the grass that springs up and 
soon withers away ; but he is also more than this. 
The quintessence of dust, he is a son of the gods as 
well as a son of the soil. He is the direct product of 
the great creative power ; therefore all the Atha- 
pascan tribes west of the Rocky Mountains — L tlie 
Kenai, the Kolushes, and the Atnai — claim descent 
from a raven — from that same mighty cloud-bird 
who in the beginning of things seized the elements 
and brought the world»from the abyss of the primi- 
tive ocean. Those of the same stock situate more 
eastwardly, the Dogribs, the Chepewyans, the Hare 
Indians, and also the west coast Eskimos, and the 
natives of the Aleutian Isles, all believe that they 
have sprung from a dog. 2 The latter animal, we have 
already seen, both in the old and new world was a 
frequent symbol of the water goddess. Therefore in 
these myths, which are found over so many thousand 

1 Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, i. p. 274 ; Cat- 
lin's Letters, i. p. 178. 

2 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, pp. 239, 247; Klemm, Cul- 
turgeschichte der MenschJieit, ii. p. 316. 



246 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN 



square leagues, we cannot be in error in perceiving a 
reflex of their cosmogonical traditions already dis- 
cussed, in which from the winds and the waters, 
represented here under their emblems of the bird 
and the dog, all animate life proceeded. 

Without this symbolic coloring, a tribe to the south 
of them, a band of the Minnetarees, had the crude 
tradition that their first progenitor emerged from the 
Avaters, bearing in his hand an ear of maize, 1 very 
much as Viracocha and his companions rose from the 
sacred waves of Lake Titicaca, or as the Moxos 
imagined that they were descended from the lakes 
and rivers on whose banks their villages were 
situated. 

These myths, and many others, hint of general 
conceptions of life and the world, wide-spread theo- 
ries of ancient date, such as we are not accustomed 
to expect among, savage nations, such as may very 
excusably excite a doubt as to their native origin, 
but a doubt infallibly dispelled by a careful compari- 
son of the best authorities. . Is it that hitherto, in 
the pride of intellectual culture, we have never done 
justice to the thinking faculty of those whom we call 
barbarians ? Or shall we accept the only other alter- 
native, that these are the unappreciated heirlooms 
bequeathed a rude race by a period of higher civiliza- 
tion, long since extinguished by constant wars and 
ceaseless fear ? We are not yet ready to answer 
these questions. For a long time the latter was ac- 
cepted as the true solution, but rather from the pre- 

1 Long, Exped. to the Rocky Mountains, i. p. 326. A more 
recent version is given by Dr. W. Matthews, Ilidatsa Grammar, 
p. 17. 



THE CHILDREN OF THE WOLF. 



247 



conceived theory of a state of primitive civilization 
from which man fell, than from ascertained facts. 

It would, perhaps, be pushing symbolism too far 
to explain as an emblem of the primitive waters the 
coyote, which, according to the Root-Diggers of Cali- 
fornia, brought their ancestors into the world ; or the 
wolf, which the Lenni Lenape pretended released 
mankind from the dark bowels of the earth by 
scratching away the soil. They should rather be 
interpreted by the curious custom of the Toukaways, 
a wild people in Texas, of predatory and unruly dis- 
position. They celebrate their origin by a grand 
annual dance. One of them, naked as he was born, 
is buried in the earth. The others, clothed in wolf- 
skins, walk over him, snuff around him, howl in 
lupine style, and finally dig him up with their nails. 
The leading wolf then solemnly places a bow and 
arrow in his hands, and to his inquiry as to what he 
must do for a living paternally advises him "to do 
as the wolves do — rob, kill, and murder, rove from 
place to place, and never cultivate the soil." 1 Most 
wise and fatherly counsel ! But what is there new 
under the sun ? Three thousand years ago the Hir- 
pini, or Wolves, an ancient Sabine tribe, were wont 
to collect on Mount Soracte, and there go through 
certain rites in memory of an oracle which predicted 
their extinction when they ceased to gain their living 
as wolves by violence and plunder. Therefore they 
dressed in wolf-skins, ran with barks and howls over 
burning coals, and gnawed wolfishly whatever they 
could seize. 2 

1 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 683. 

2 Schwarz, Ursprung der Mythologies p. 121. 



248 



THE ORIGIN OF MAN 



Though hasty writers have often said that the In- 
dian tribes claim literal descent from different wild 
beasts, probably in all other instances, as in these, 
this will prove, on examination, to be an error rest- 
ing on a misapprehension arising from the habit of 
the natives of adopting as their totem or clan-mark 
the figure and name of some animal, or else, in an 
ignorance of the animate symbols employed with 
such marked preference by the red race to express 
abstract ideas. In some cases, doubtless, the natives 
themselves came, in time, to confound the symbol 
with the idea, by that familiar process of personifica- 
tion and consequent debasement exemplified in the 
history of every religion ; but I do not believe that 
a single example could be found where an Indian 
tribe had a tradition whose real purport was that 
man came by natural process of descent from an 
ancestor, a brute. 

The reflecting mind will not be offended at the 
contradictions in these different myths, for a myth is, 
in one sense, a theory of natural phenomena ex- 
pressed in the form of a narrative. Often several 
explanations seem equally satisfactory for the same 
fact, and the mind hesitates to choose, and rather 
accepts them all than reject any. Then, again, an 
expression current as a metaphor by-ancl-by crystal- 
lizes into a dogma, and becomes the nucleus of a new 
mythological growth. These are familiar processes 
to one versed in such studies, and involve no logical 
contradiction, because they are never required to be 
reconciled.' 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 

Universality of the belief in a soul and a future state shown by the aborig- 
inal tongues, by expressed opinions, and by sepulchral rites. — The future 
world never a place of rewards and punishments. — The house of the 
Sun the heaven of the red man. — The terrestrial paradise and the under- 
world. — Cupay. — Xibalba. — Mictlan. — Metempsychosis ? — Belief in a 
resurrection of the dead almost universal. 

THE missionary Charlevoix wrote several excellent 
works on America toward the beginning of the 
last century, and he is often quoted by later authors ; 
but probably no one of his sayings has been thus 
honored more frequently than this : " The belief the 
best established among our Americans is that of the 
immortality of the soul." 1 The tremendous stake 
that every one of us has on the truth of this dogma 
makes it quite a satisfaction to be persuaded that no 
man is willing to live wholly without it. Certainly 
exceptions are very rare, and most of those which 
materialistic philosophers have taken such pains to 
collect, rest on misunderstandings or superficial ob- 
servation. 

In the new world I know of only one well au- 
thenticated instance where all notion of a future state 
appears to have been entirety wanting, and this in 
quite a small clan, the JLower Pend d'Oreilles, of 

1 Journal Ilistorique, p. 351: Paris, 1740. 



250 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



Oregon. This people had no burial ceremonies, no 
notion of a life hereafter, no word for soul, spiritual 
existence, or vital principle. They thought that when 
they died, that was the last of them. The Cath- 
olic missionaries who undertook the unpromising task 
of converting them to Christianity, were at first 
obliged to depend upon the imperfect translations of 
half-breed interpreters. These " made the idea of 
soul intelligible to their hearers by telling them they 
had a gut which never rotted, and that this was their 
living principle ! " Yet even they were not desti- 
tute of religious notions. No tribe was more addict- 
ed to the observance of charms, omens, dreams, and 
guardian spirits, and they believed that illness and 
bad luck generally were the effects of the anger of a 
fabulous old woman. 1 The aborigines of the Cali- 
fornian peninsula were as near beasts as men ever 
become. The missionaries likened them to " herds- 
of swine, who neither worshipped the true and only 
God, nor adored false deities." Yet they must have 
had some vague notion of an after-world, for the 
writer who paints the darkest picture of their condi- 
tion remarks, u I saw them frequently putting shoes 
on the feet of the dead, which seems to indicate that 
they entertain the idea of a journey after death." 2 

1 Rep. of the Commissioner of Ind. Affairs, 1854, pp. 211, 212. 
The old woman is once more a personification of the water and 
the moon. 

2 Baegert, Acc. of the Aborig. Tribes of the Calif ornian Penin- 
sula, translated by Chas. Ran, in Ann. Rep. Smithson. Inst., 
1&66, p. 387. The custom recalls the Todtenschuhe which the 
ancient Germans placed on corpses " because they make a long 
journey." See Holtzmann, Deutsche Mythologie, s. 205. 



THE SOUL AND THE SHADOW. 



251 



Proof of Charlevoix's opinion may be derived from 
three independent sources. The aboriginal lan- 
guages may be examined for terms corresponding to 
the word soul, the opinions of the Indians themselves 
may be quoted, and the significance of sepulchral 
rites as indicative of a belief in life after death may 
be determined. 

The most satisfactory is the first of these. We call 
the soul a ghost or spirit, and often a shade. In 
these words, the breath and the shadow are the sensu- 
ous perceptions transferred to represent the imma- 
terial object of our thought. Why the former was 
chosen, I have already explained ; and for the latter, 
that it is man's intangible image, his constant com- 
panion, and is of a nature akin to darkness, earth, 
and night, are sufficiently obvious reasons. 

These same tropes recur in American languages in 
the same connection. The Choctaw belief was that 
each man has an outside shadow, shilombish, and an 
inside shadow, shilup, both of which survive his de- 
cease. The New England tribes called the soul 
chaining, the shadow, and in Quiche natub, in Eskimo 
tamak, express both these ideas. In the several 
Costa-Rican dialects, the Brunka, the Bri-bri, the 
Cabecar and the Tiribi, the root of the words for 
ghost, shadow, spirit, is the same. 1 In Mohawk 
atonritz the soul, is from atonrion, to breathe, and 
other examples to the same purpose have already 
been given. 2 

1 Gabb, Ind. Tribes, and Langs, of Costa Rica, p. 538. 

2 Of the Nicaraguans Oviedo says : " Ce n'est pas leur cceur 
qui va en haut, mais ce qui les faisait vivre ; c'est-a-dire, le 
souffle qui leur sort par la bouche, et que Ton nomme Julio'''' 



252 



TEE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY, 



Of course no one need demand that a strict imma- 
teriality be attached to these words. Such a color- 
less negative abstraction never existed for them, 
neither does it for us, though we delude ourselves 
into believing that it does. The soul was to them 
the invisible man, material as ever, but lost to the 
appreciation of the senses. 

Nor let any one be astonished if its unity was 
doubted, and several supposed to reside in one body. 
This is nothing more than a somewhat gross form of 
a doctrine upheld by most creeds and most philoso- 
phies. It seems the readiest solution of certain psy- 
chological enigmas, and may, for aught we know, be 
an instinct of fact. The Rabbis taught a threefold 
division — nepliesh, the animal, ruah, the human, and 
neshamah, the divine soul, which corresponds to that 
of Plato into thumos, epithumia, and nous. And even 
Saint Paul seems to have recognized such inherent 
plurality when he distinguishes between the bodily 
soul, the intellectual soul, and the spiritual gift, in 
his Epistle to the Romans. No such refinements of 
course as these are to be expected among the red 
men ; but it may be looked upon either as the rudi- 
ments of these teachings, or as a gradual debasement 
of them to gross and material expression, that an old 
and wide-spread notion was found among both Iro- 
quois and Algonkins, that man has two souls, one of 

(Hist, du Nicaragua^ p. 36). The word should be yulia, kin- 
dred with yoli, to live. (Buschmann, Uber die Aztekischen 
Ortsnamen, p. 765.) In the Aztec and cognate languages we 
have already seen that ehecatl means both wind, soul, and shadow 
(Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Spr. in Ndrdliehen Mexico, p. 
71). 



THE PLURALITY OF SOULS. 2oZ 

a vegetative character, which gives bodily life and 
remains with the corpse after death, until it is called 
to enter another body ; another of more ethereal text- 
ure, which in life can depart from the body in sleep 
or trance, and wander over the world, and at death 
goes directly to the land of Spirits. 1 

The Sioux extended it to Plato's number, and are 
said to have looked forward to one going to a cold 
place, another to a warm and comfortable country, 
while the third was to watch the body. Certainly a 
most impartial distribution of rewards and punish- 
ments. 2 Some other Dakota tribes shared their views 
on this point, but more commonly, doubtless, owing 
to the sacredness of the number, imagined four souls, 
with separate destinies, one to wander about the 
world, one to watch the body, the third to hover 
around the village, and the highest to go to the spirit 
land. 3 Even this number is multiplied by certain 
Oregon tribes, who imagine one in every member ; 
and by the Caribs of Martinique, who, wherever they 
could detect a pulsation, located a spirit, all subor- 
dinate, however, to a supreme one throned in the 
heart, which alone would be transported to the 
skies at death. 4 For the heart that so constantly 
sympathizes with our emotions and actions is, in 
most languages and most nations, regarded as the 
seat of life ; and when the priests of bloody religions 

1 Rel. de la Nouv. France, An. 1636, p. 104 ; " Keating's Nar- 
rative," i. pp. 232, 410. 

2 French, Hist. Colls, of Louisiana, iii. p. 26. 

3 Mrs. Eastman, Legends of the Sioux, p. 129. 

4 Voy. a la Louisiane fait en 1720, p. 155: Paris, 1768. 



254 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



tore out the heart of the victim and offered it to the 
idol, it was an emblem of the life that was thus torn 
from the field of this world and consecrated to the 
rulers of the next. In many of the native tongues 
the compound words formed with its name indicate 
that various emotions and feelings were supposed to 
arise from its conditions. 1 

The seat of the soul was variously located, how- 
ever. The Costa-Ricans place to this day the pow- 
ers of thought and memory in the liver ; 2 and a 
Thlinkeet legend, quoted by Mr. Bancroft, who com- 
ments on its obscurity, 3 relates that the first of all 
men came into being " when the liver came out from 
below," showing that this tribe also regarded that 
gland as the seat of life. Most usually the head 
was regarded as the vital member. Ro^er Williams 
remarks of the New England Indians : " In the 
braine their opinion is that the soule keeps her chiefe 
seate and residence." 4 By an easy metonymy, exempli- 
fied in all the classical languages, the head represents 
the man, and in this meaning appears in the picture 
writing, in the usage of preserving heads and 
skulls, and in the custom of scalping which was 
encountered by the early explorers in both North and 
South America. 

Various motives impel the living to treat with 
respect the body from which life has departed. 
Lowest of them is a superstitious dread of death and 

1 See for example Matthews' Hidatsa Diet. s. v. d'aii : Baraga, 
Otchipwe Diet. s. v. Heart. 

2 Gabb, Ind. Tribes and Langs, of Costa Rica, p. 538. 

3 Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. iii, p. 102. 

4 Key into the Langs, of Am., p. 77. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 



255 



the dead. The stoicism of the Indian, especially the 
northern tribes, in the face of death, has often been 
the topic of poets, and has often been interpreted to 
be a fearlessness of that event. This is by no means 
true. Savages have an awful horror of death ; it is 
to them the worst of ills ; and for this very reason 
was it that they thought to meet it without flinching 
was the highest proof of courage. Everything con- 
nected with the deceased w T as, in many tribes, shun- 
ned with superstitious terror. His name was not 
mentioned, his property left untouched, all reference 
to him was sedulously avoided. A Tupi tribe used 
to hurry the body at once to the nearest water, and 
toss it in ; the Arkanzas left it in the lodge and burn- 
ed over it the dwelling and contents ; and the Algon- 
kins carried it forth by a hole cut opposite the door, 
and beat the walls with sticks to fright away the 
lingering ghost. Burying places were always 
avoided, and every means taken to prevent the de- 
parted spirits exercising a malicious influence on 
those remaining behind. 

These craven fears do but reveal the natural re- 
pugnance of the animal to a cessation of existence, 
and arise from the instinct of self-preservation essen- 
tial to organic life. Other rites, undertaken avowed- 
ly for the behoof of the soul, prove and illustrate a 
simple but unshaken faith in its continued existence 
after the decay of the body. 

None of these is more common or more natural 
than that which attributes to the emancipated spirit 
the same wants that it felt while on earth, and with 
loving foresight provides for their satisfaction. 
Clothing and utensils of war and the chase were, in 



256 



THE SOUL AXD ITS DESTIXY. 



ancient times, uniformly placed by the body, under 
the impression that they would be of service to the 
departed in his new home. Some few tribes in the 
far west still retain the custom, but most were 
soon ridiculed into its neglect, or were forced 
to omit it by the violation of tombs practised by 
depraved whites in hope of gain. To these harmless 
offerings the northern tribes often added a do£ slain 
on the grave ; and doubtless the skeletons of these 
animals in so many tombs in Mexico and Peru point 
to similar customs there. It had no deeper meaning 
than to give a companion to the spirit in its long 
and lonesome journey to the far off land of shades. 
The peculiar appropriateness of the dog arose not 
only from the guardianship it exerts during life, but 
further from the symbolic signification it so often 
had as representative of the goddess of night and the 
grave. 

Where a despotic form of government reduced the 
subject almost to the level of a slave and elevated 
the ruler almost to that of a superior being, not 
animals only, but men, women, and children were 
frequently immolated at the tomb of the cacique. 
The territory embraced in our own country was not 
without examples of this custom. On the lower 
Mississippi, the Natchez Indians practised it in all its 
ghastliness. When a sun or chief died, one or sev- 
eral of his wives and his highest officers were knocked 
on the head and buried with him, and at such times 
the barbarous privilege was allowed to any of the 
lowest caste to at once gain admittance to the highest 
by the murder of their own children on the funeral 
pyre — a privilege which respectable writers tell us 



THE SOUL UPON ITS JOURNEY. 



257 



human beings were found base enough to take ad- 
vantage of. 1 

Oviedo relates that in the province of Guataro, in 
Guatemala, an actual rivalry prevailed among the 
people to be slain at the death of their cacique, for 
they had been taught that only such as went with 
him would ever find their way to the paradise of the 
departed. 2 Theirs was therefore somewhat of a selfish 
motive, and only in certain parts of Peru, where poly- 
gamy prevailed, and the rule was that only one wife 
was to be sacrificed, does the deportment of husbands 
seem to have been so creditable that their widows 
disputed one with another for the pleasure of being 
buried alive with the dead body, and bearing their 
spouse company to the other world. 3 Wives who 
have found few parallels since the famous matron of 
Ephesus ! 

The fire built nightly on the grave was to light the 
spirit on its journey. By a coincidence to be ex- 
plained by the universal sacredness of the number, 
both Algonkins and Mexicans maintained it for four 
nights consecutively. The former related the tradi- 
tion that one of their ancestors returned from the 
spirit land and informed their nation that the journey 
thither consumed just four days, and that collecting 
fuel every night added much to the toil and fatigue 
the soul encountered, all of which could be spared 

1 Dupratz, Hist, of Louisiana, ii. p. Liy° Dumont, Mems. 
Hist, sur la Louisiane, i. chap. 26. 

2 ReL de la Prov. de Cuchr., p. 140. 

5 Coreal, Voiages aux Indes ii xzdental:s ) ii. 94: Amsterdam, 
1722. 

17 



258 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



it by the relatives kindling nightly a fire on the grave. 
Or as Longfellow has told it : — 

*' Four days is the spirit's journey 
To the land of ghosts and shadows, 
Four its lonely night encampments. 
Therefore when the dead are buried, 
Let a fire as night approaches 
Four times on the grave be kindled, 
That the soul upon its journey 
May not grope about in darkness." 

The same length of time, say the Navajos, does the 
departed soul wander over a gloomy marsh ere it can 
discover the ladder leading to the world below, where 
are the homes of the setting and the rising sun, a 
land of luxuriant plenty, stocked with game and 
covered with corn. To that land, say they, sink all 
lost seeds and germs which fall on the earth and do 
not sprout. There below they take root, bud, and 
ripen their fruit. 1 

After four days, once more, in the superstitions of 
the Greenland Eskimos, does the soul, for that term 
after death confined in the body, at last break from 
its prison-house and either rise in the sky to dance 
in the aurora borealis or descend into the pleasant 
land beneath the earth, according to the manner of 
death.' 2 Certain of the Aztecs taught that four years 
elapsed ere the wandering ghost reached its rest. 3 

That there are logical contradictions in this belief 
and these ceremonies, that the fire is always in the 
same spot, that the weapons and utensils are not 

1 Senate Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, p. 358 : Wash. 1867. 

2 Egede, N acliricliten von Gronland, p. 145 
8 Codex Telleriano Mememis, p. 191. 



THE HEAVEN OF THE RED MAN. 



259 



carried away by the departed, and that the food placed 
for his sustenance remains untouched, is very true. 
But those who would therefore argue that they were 
not intended for the benefit of the soul, and seek 
some more recondite meaning in them as " uncon- 
scious emblems of struggling faith or expressions of 
inward emotions," 1 are led astray by the very sim- 
plicity of their real intention. Where is the faith, 
where the science, that does not involve logical con- 
tradictions just as gross as these ? They are tolerable 
to us merely because we are used to them. What 
value has the evidence of the senses anywhere against 
a religious belief ? None whatever. A stumbling 
block though this be to the materialist, it is univer- 
sally true and must be accepted as an experimental 
fact. 

The preconceived opinions that saw in the meteoro- 
logical myths of the Indian a conflict between the 
Spirit of Good and the Spirit of Evil, have with like 
unconscious error falsified his doctrine of a future 
life, and almost without an exception drawn it more 
or less in the likeness of the Christian heaven, hell, 
and purgatory. Very faint traces of any such belief 
except where derived from the missionaries are visible 
in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined 
doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punish- 
ed in the next world. No contrast is discoverable 
between a place of torments and a realm of joy , at 
the worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, 
the coward, or the niggard. The typical belief of the 
tribes of the United States was well expressed in the 

1 Alger, Hist, of the D ctrine of a FuVxre Lif 0 , p. 76. 



200 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker 
for the Creek nation in the National Council, to the 
question, Do the red people believe in a future state 
of rewards and punishments ? " We have an opinion 
that those who have behaved well are taken under 
the care of Esaugetuh Emissee, and assisted ; and 
that those who have behaved ill are left to shift for 
themselves ; and that there is no other punishment." 1 
Neither the delights of a heaven on the one hand, 
nor the terrors of a hell on the other, were ever held 
out by priests or sages as an incentive to well-doing 
or a warning to the evil-disposed. Different fates, 
indeed, awaited the departed souls, but these rarely, 
if ever, were decided by their conduct while in the 
flesh, but by the manner of death, the punctuality 
with which certain sepulchral rites were fulfilled 
by relatives, or other similar arbitrary circumstance 
beyond the power of the individual to control. This 
view, which I am well aware is directly at variance 
with that of all previous writers, may be shown to be 
that natural to the uncultivated intellect everywhere, 
and the real interpretation of the creeds of America. 
Whether these arbitrary circumstances were not con- 
strued to signify the decision of the Divine Mind on 
the life of the man, is a deeper question, which there 
is no means at hand to solve. 

1 Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, p. 80. Of the Choc- 
taws the Rev. Alfred Wright writes : 1 1 They believe that the 
soul survives the body, but they do not appear to think that its 
condition is at all affected by the conduct in this life." Mission- 
ary Herald, vol. xxiv. p. 178. sqq. Abundant evidence could 
be furnished to show that this is the typical doctrine of the red 
race, and indeed of primitive man generally. 



THE FATE OF THE SOUL. 



261 



Those who have complained of the hopeless confu- 
sion of American religions have but proven the 
insufficiency of their own means of analyzing them. 
The uniformity which they display in so many points 
is nowhere more fully illustrated than in the unani- 
mity with which they all point to the sun as the land 
of the happy souls, the realm of the blessed, the 
scene of the joyous hunting-grounds of the hereafter. 
Its perennial glory, its comfortable warmth, its daily 
analogy to the life of man, marked its abode as the 
pleasantest spot in the universe. It matters not 
whether the eastern Algonkins pointed to the south, 
others of their nation, with the Iroquois and Creeks, 
to the west, or many tribes to the east, as the direc- 
tion taken by the spirit ; all these myths but mean 
that its bourn is the home of the sun, which is per- 
haps in the Orient whence he comes forth, in the 
Occident where he makes his bed, or in the South- 
whither he retires in the chilling winter. Where the 
sun lives, they informed the earliest foreign visitors, 
were the villages of the deceased, and the milky way 
which nightly spans the arch of heaven was in their 
opinion the road that led thither, and was called the 
path of the souls (le chemin des ames}. 1 To liucyuku, 
the mansion of the sun, said the Caribs, the soul 
passes when death overtakes the body.' 2 ToAvard the 
warm southwest, to the great manito, who sends the 
mild sunny days, the corn and the beans, said the 
New England natives to Roger Williams, will all 
souls go. 3 Our knowledge is scanty of the doctrines 

1 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1634, pp. 17, 18. 

2 Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen , p. 229. 

3 Key into the Langs, of Am., p. 148. 



2G2 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



taught by the Incas concerning the soul, but this 
much we clo know, that they looked to the sun, their 
recognized lord and protector, as he who would care 
at death, and admit them to his palaces. There — not, 
indeed, exquisite joys — but a life of unruffled placid- 
ity, void of labor, vacant of strong emotions, a sort 
of material Nirvana, awaited them. 1 For these rea- 
sons, they, with most other American nations, in- 
terred the corpse lying east and west, and not as the 
traveller Meyen has suggested, 2 from the reminis- 
cences of some ancient migration. Beyond the Cor- 
dilleras, quite to the coast of Brazil, the innumerable 
hordes who wandered through the sombre tropical 
forests of that immense territory also pointed to the 
west, to the region beyond the mountains, as the 
land where the souls of their ancestors lived in un- 
disturbed serenity ; or, in the more brilliant imagina- 
tions of the later generations, in a state of perennial 
inebriety, surrounded by infinite casks of rum, and 
with no white man to dole it out to them. 3 The 
natives of the extreme south, of the Pampas and 
Patagonia suppose the stars are the souls of the de- 
parted. At night they wander about the sky, but the 
moment the sun rises they hasten to the cheerful 
light, and are seen no more until it disappears in the 
west. So the Eskimo of the distant north, in the 
long winter nights when the aurora bridges the sky 
with its changing hues and arrowy shafts of light, 

1 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, lib. ii. cap. 7. 

2 Ueber die Ureinwohner von Peru p. 41. 

3 Coreal, Voy. aux Indes Occident., i. p. 221; Miiller, Amer. 
Urrelig., p. 2S9. 



THE FATE OF THE SOUL. 



2GS 



believes he sees the spirits of his ancestors clothed in 
celestial raiment, disporting themselves in the absence 
of the sun, and calls the phenomena the dance of the 
dead. 

The home of the sun was the heaven of the red 
man ; but to this joyous abode not everyone without 
distinction, no miscellaneous crowd, could gain ad- 
mittance. The conditions were as various as the 
national temperaments. As the fierce gods of the 
Northmen would admit no soul to the banquets of 
Walhalla but such as had met the " spear-death " in 
the bloody play of war, and shut out pitilessly all 
those who feebly breathed their last in the " straw 
death" on the couch of sickness, so the warlike Aztec 
race in Nicaragua held that the shades of those who 
died in their beds went downward and to naught ; but 
of those who fell in battle for their country to the 
east, "to the place whence comes the sun." 1 In an- 
cient Mexico not only the warriors who were thus 
sacrificed on the altar of their country, but with a 
delicate and poetical sense of justice that speaks well 
for the refinement of the race, also those women who 
perished in child-birth, were admitted to the home of 
the sun. For are not they also heroines in the battle 
of life ? Are they not also its victims ? And do they 
not lay down their lives for country and kindred? 
Every morning, it was imagined, the heroes came 
forth in battle array, and with shout and song and 
the ring of weapons, accompanied the sun to the ze- 
nith, where at every noon the souls of the mothers, 
the Cihuapipilti, received him with dances, music, 



1 Oviedo, II '.st. du Nicaragua, p. 22. 



264 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



and flowers, and bore him company to his western 
couch. 1 Except these, none — unless, it may be, the 
victims sacrificed to the gods, and this is doubtful — 
was deemed worthy of the highest heaven. 

A mild and unwarlike tribe of Guatemala, on the 
other hand, were persuaded that to die by any other 
than a natural death was to forfeit all hope of life 
hereafter, and therefore left the bodies of the slain to 
the beasts and vultures. 

The Mexicans had another place of happiness for 
departed souls, not promising perpetual life as the 
home of the sun, but unalloyed pleasure for a certain 
term of years. This was Tlalocan, the realm of the 
god of rains and waters, the terrestrial paradise, 
whence flowed all the rivers of the earth, and all the 
nourishment of the race. The diseases of which per- 
sons died marked this destination. Such as were 
drowned, or struck by lightning, or succumbed to 
humoral complaints, as dropsies and leprosy, were by 
these tokens known to be chosen as the subjects of 
Tlaloc. To such, said the natives, " death is the 
commencement of another life, it is as waking from 
a dream, and the soul is no more human but divine 
(teof)." Therefore they addressed their dying in 
terms like these : " Sir, or lady, awake, awake ; al- 
ready does the dawn appear ; even now is the light 
approaching ; already do the birds of yellow plum- 
age begin their songs to greet thee ; already are the 
gayly-tinted butterflies flitting around thee." 2 

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 27. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. x. cap. 29. 



THE RIVER OF DEATH. 



2G5 



Before proceeding to the more gloomy portion of 
the subject, to the destiny of those souls who were 
not chosen for the better part, I must advert to a 
curious coincidence in the religious reveries of many 
nations which finds its explanation in the belief that 
the house of the sun is the home of the blessed, and 
proves that this was the first conception of most 
natural religions. It is seen in the events and ob- 
stacles of the journey to the happy land. We every- 
where hear of a water which the soul must cross, 
and an opponent, either a dog or an evil spirit, which 
it has to contend with. We are all familiar with 
the dog Cerberus (called by Homer simply " the 
dog "), which disputed the passage of the river Styx, 
over which the souls must cross ; and with the cus- 
tom of the vikings, to be buried in a boat so that 
they might cross the waters of Ginunga-gap to the 
inviting strands of Godheim. Relics of this belief 
are found in the Koran, which describes the bridge 
el jSirat, thin as a hair and sharp as a scimetar, 
stretched in a single span from heaven to earth ; in 
the bridge Bifrost, which, according to the Edda, 
stretches from earth to heaven ; in the Persian le- 
gend, where the rainbow arch Chinevad is flung 
across the gloomy depths between this world and 
the home of the happy; and even in the current 
Christian allegory which represents the waters of the 
mythical Jordan rolling between us and the Celes- 
tial City. 

How strange at first sight does it seem that the 
Hurons and Iroquois should have told the earliest 
missionaries that after death the soul must cross a 
deep and swift river on a bridge formed by a single 



2G6 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



slender tree most lightly supported, where it had to 
defend itself against the attacks of a dog ? 1 If only 
they had expressed this belief, it might have passed 
for a coincidence merely. But the Athapascas (Che- 
pewyans) also told of a great water, which the soul 
must cross in a stone canoe ; the Algonkins and Da- 
kotas, of a stream bridged by an enormous snake, or 
a narrow and precipitous rock, and the Araucanians 
of Chili of a sea in the west, in crossing which the 
soul was required to pay toll to a malicious old wo- 
man. Were it unluckily impecunious, she deprived it 
of an eye. 2 With the Aztecs, this water was called 
Chicunoapa, the Nine Rivers. It was guarded by a 
doo; and a preen dragon, to conciliate which the dead 
were furnished with slips of paper by way of toll. 
The Greenland Eskimos thought that the waters 
roared through an unfathomable abyss over which 
there was no other bridge than a wheel slippery with 
ice, forever revolving with fearful rapidity, or a path 
narrow as a cord with nothing to hold on by. On 
the other side sits a horrid old woman gnashing her 
teeth and tearing her hair with rage. As each soul 
approaches she burns a feather under its nose ; if it 
faints she seizes it for her prisoner, but if the soul's 
guardian spirit can overcome her, it passes through 
in safety. 3 

1 Eel de la Nouv. France, 1G36, p. 105. The Algonkin Otta- 
was had this form of the leg-end (Xic Perrot, Mem. sur VAmeri- 
que, Sept. (1665), p. 41). The Otchipwe name for the bridge is 
Kokohajogan. Owl Bridge (Baraga, Otjhipiue Diet. s. v.) 

2 Molina, Hist, of Chili, ii. p. 81, and others in Waitz, An- 
thropologic, hi. p. 197. 

3 Nachrichten von Gronland aus clem Tagebuche vom Bischof 
Paul Egede, p. 104; Kopenhagen, 1790. 



THE RIVER OF DEATH. 



2G7 



The similarity to the passage of the soul across the 
Styx, and the toll of the obolus to Charon is in the 
Aztec legend still more striking, when we remember 
that the Styx was the ninth head of Oceanus (omitting 
the Cocytus, often a branch of the Styx). The ,*-r 
Nine Rivers probably refer to the nine Lords of the 
Night, ancient Aztec deities guarding the nocturnal 
hours, and introduced into their calendar. The Tupis 
and Caribs, the Mayas and Creeks, entertained very 
similar expectations. 

We are to seek the explanation of these wide- 
spread theories of the soul's journey in the equally 
prevalent tenet that the sun is its destination, and 
that that luminary has his abode beyond the ocean 
stream, which in all primitive geographies rolls its 
waves around the habitable land. This ocean stream 
is the water which all have to attempt to pass, and 
woe to him whom the spirit of the waters, represented 
either as the old woman, the dragon, or the dog of 
Hecate, seizes and overcomes. In the lush fancy of 
the Orient, the spirit of the waters becomes the 
spirit of evil, the ocean stream the abyss of hell, and 
those who fail in the passage the damned, who are 
foredoomed to evil deeds and endless torture. 

No such ethical bearing as this was ever assigned 
the myth by the red race before they were taught by 
Europeans. Father Brebeuf could only find that the 
souls of suicides and those killed in war were sup- 
posed to live apart from the others ; " but as to the 
souls of scoundrels," he adds, " so far from being 
shut out, they are the welcome guests, though for 
that matter if it were not so, their paradise would 
be a total desert, as Huron and scoundrel QHuron 



2C8 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



et larron) are one and the same." 1 When the Min- 
netarees told Major Long and the Mannicicas of the 
La Plata the Jesuits, 2 that the souls of the bad fell 
into the waters and were swept away, this was, 
beyond doubt, attributable either to a false interpre- 
tation, or to Christian instruction. No such distinc- 
tion is probable among savages. The Brazilian na- 
tives divided the dead into classes, supposing that 
the drowned, those killed by violence, and those 
yielding to disease, lived in separate regions 3 but 
no ethical reason whatever seems to have been con- 
nected with this. 3 If the conception of a place of 
moral retribution was known at all to the race, it 
should be found easily recognizable in Mexico, Yuca- 
tan, or Peru. But the so-called " hells ?> of their 
religions have no such significance, and the spirits 
of evil, who were identified by early writers with 
Satan, no more deserve the name than does the Greek 
Pluto. 

Cupay or Supay, the Shadow, in Peru was sup- 
posed to rule the land of shades in the centre of the 
earth. To him went all souls not destined to be the 
companions of the Sun. This is all we know of his 
attributes ; and the assertion of Garcilasso dela Vega, 
that he was the analogue of the Christian Devil, and 
that his name was never pronounced without spitting 
and muttering a curse on his head, may be invali- 

1 Rel. de la Nouv. France, 1636, p. 105. 

2 Long's Expedition, i. p. 280; Waitz, Anthropologic, iii. p. 
501. Dr. Matthews found no such moral distinction believed 
in by the Minnetarees of the present day. (Ilidatsa Grammar, 
p. xxiii.) 

3 Miiller, Amer. Urreligionen, p. 2S7. 



CUP AY AND XI B ALB A. 



269 



dated by the testimony of an earlier and better au- 
thority on the religion of Peru, who caiJs him the god 
of rains, and adds that the famous Inca, Huayna 
Capac, was his high priest. 1 

" The devil," says Cogolludo of the Mayas, a is 
called by them Xibilha, which means he who disap- 
pears or vanishes." 2 In the legends of the Quiches, 
the name Xibalba is given as that of the under-world 
ruled by the grim lords One Death and Seven Deaths, 
The derivation of the name is from a root meaning to 
fear, from which comes the term in Maya dialects 
for a ghost or phantom. 3 Under the influence of a 
century of Christian catechizing, the Quiche legends 
portray this really as a place of torment, and its 
rulers as malignant and powerful ; but as I have 
before pointed out, they do so protesting that such 
was not the ancient belief, and they let fall no word 
that shows that it was regarded as the destination of 
the morally bad. The original meaning of the name 
given by Cogolludo points unmistakably to the sim- 
ple fact of disappearance from among men, and cor- 
responds in harmlessness to the true sense of those 

1 Compare Garcilasso de la Vega, Hist, des Incas., liv. ii. chap. 
ii.,with Lett, sur les Superstitions du Perou, p. 104. Cupay is 
undoubtedly a personal form from Cupan, a shadow. (See Hol- 
guin, Vocab. de la Lengua Quichua, p. 80: Cuzco, 1608.) 

2 "El que desparece 6 desvanece," Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. 
cap. 7. 

3 Ximenes, Vocab. Quicli'e, p. 224. The attempt of the Abb6 
Brasseur to make of Xibalba an ancient kingdom of renown with 
Palenque as its capital, is so utterly unsupported and wildly 
hypothetical as to justify the humorous flings which have so 
often been cast at antiquaries. 



270 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



words of fear, Scheol, Hades, Hell, all signifying hid- 
den from sight, and only endowed with more grim 
associations by the imaginations of later generations. 1 

Mictlanteuetli, Lord of Mictlan, from a word mean- 
ing to die (inic death, tlan near), was the Mexican 
Pluto. Like Cupay, he dwelt in the subterranean 
regions, and his palace was named Tlalxicco, the 
navel of the earth. Yet he was also located in the 
far north, and that point of the compass and the 
north wind were named after him. Those who 
descended to him were oppressed by the darkness of 
his abode, but were subjected to no other trials ; nor 
were they sent thither as a punishment, but merely 
from having died of diseases unfitting them for 
Tlalocan. Mictlanteuetli was said to be the most 
powerful of the gods. For who is stronger than 
Death ? And who dare defy the Grave ? As the skald 
lets Odin say to Bragi : " Our lot is uncertain ; even 
on the hosts of the gods gazes the gray Fenris wolf." 1 

These various abodes to which the incorporeal man 
took flight were not always his everlasting home. 
It will be remembered that where a plurality of souls 
was believed, one of these, soon after death, entered 
another body to recommence life on earth. Acting 
under this persuasion, the Algonkin women who de- 
sired to become mothers, flocked to the couch of those 
about to die, in hope that the vital principle, as it 
passed from the body, would enter theirs, and ferti- 

1 Scheol is from a Hebrew word, signifying to dig, to hide in 
the earth. Hades signifies the unseen or unseeing world. Hell 
Jacob Grimm derives from Mian, to conceal in the earth ; it is 
cognate with liole and hollow. 

2 Pennock, 'Religion of the Northmen, p. 148. 



MET EM PS YCH0S1S, 



271 



lize their sterile wombs • and when, among the Semi- 
noles of Florida, a mother died in childbirth, the 
infant was held over her face to receive her parting 
spirit, and thus acquire strength and knowledge for 
its future use. 1 So among the Takahlis, the priest 
is accustomed to lay his hand on the head of the 
nearest relative of the deceased, and to blow into him 
the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come 
to life in his next child. 2 Probably, with a reference 
to the current tradition that ascribes the origin of 
man to the earth, and likens his life to that of the 
plant, the Mexicans were accustomed to say that at 
one time all men have been stones, and that at last 
they would all return to stones, 3 and, acting literally 
on this conviction, they interred with the bones of 
the dead a small green stone, which was called the 
principle of life. 

Whether any nations accepted the doctrine of 
metempsychosis, and thought that " the souls of 
their grandams might haply inhabit a partridge," we 
are without the means of knowing. La Hontan denies 
it positively of the Algonkins ; but the natives 
of Popoyan refused to kill doves, says Coreal, 4 
because they believed them inspired by the souls 
of the departed. And Father Ignatius Chome re- 
lates that he heard a woman of the Chiriquanes in 
Buenos Ayres say of a fox : " May that not be the 

1 La Hontan, Voy. dans V Am. Sept. i.. p. 232 ; Narrative of 
Oceola Nikkanoche, p. 75. 

2 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 345. 

3 Garcia, Or. de los Indios, Kb. iv. cap. 26, p. 310. 

4 Voiages aux Indes Oc, ii. p. 132. 



272 



THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



spirit of my dead daughter ? " 1 But before accept- 
ing such testimony as decisive, we must first enquire 
whether these tribes believed in a multiplicity of 
souls, whether these animals had a symbolical value, 
and if not, whether the soul was not simply presumed 
to put on this shape in its journey to the land of the 
hereafter : inquiries which are unanswered. Leaving, 
therefore, the question open, whether the sage of 
Samos had any disciples in the new world, another 
and more fruitful topic is presented by . their well- 
ascertain ed notions of the resurrection of the dead. 

This seemingly extraordinary doctrine, which some 
have asserted was entirely unknown and impossi- 
ble to the American Indians, 2 was in fact one of 
their most deeply-rooted and wide-spread convic- 
tions, especially among the tribes of the eastern 
United States. It is indissolubly connected with 
their highest theories of a future life, their burial 
ceremonies, and their modes of expression. The Mo- 
ravian Brethren give the grounds of this belief 
with great clearness: "That they hold the soul to 
be immortal, and perhaps think the body will rise 
again, they give not unclearly to understand when 
they say, 4 We Indians shall not forever die ; even 
the grains of corn we put under the earth grow up 
and become living things.' They conceive that when 
the soul has been a while with God, it can, if it 
chooses, return to earth and'be born again." 3 This 
is the highest and typical creed of the aborigines. But 

1 Lettres Ed if. et Cur., v. p. 203. 

2 Alger, Hist, of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 72. 

3 Loskiel, Ges. der Miss, der euang. Briider, p. 49. 



THE PRESERVATION OF BONES. 



273 



instead of simply being born again in the ordinary 
sense of the word, they thought the soul would re- 
turn to the bones, that these would clothe themselves 
with flesh, and that the man would rejoin his tribe. 
That this was the real, though often doubtless the 
dimly understood reason of the custom of preserving 
the bones of the deceased, can be shown by various 
arguments. 

This practice was almost universal. East of the 
Mississippi nearly every nation was accustomed, at 
stated periods — usually once in eight or ten years — 
to collect and clean the osseous remains of those of 
its number who had died in the intervening time, 
and inter them in one common sepulchre, lined with 
choice furs, and marked with a mound of wood, stone, 
and earth. Such is the origin of those immense 
tumuli filled with the mortal remains of nations and 
generations which the antiquary, with irreverent 
curiosity, so frequently chances upon in all portions 
of our territory. Throughout Central America the 
same usage obtained in various localities, as early 
writers and existing monuments abundantly testify. 
Instead of interring the bones, were they those of 
some distinguished chieftain, they were deposited in 
the temples or the council-houses, usually in small 
chests of canes or splints. Such were the charnel- 
houses which the historians of De Soto's expedition 
so often mention, and these are the " arks " which 
Adair and other authors, who have sought to trace the 
descent of the Indians from the Jews, have likened 
to that which the ancient Israelites bore with them 
on their migrations. A widow among the Tahkalis 
was obliged to carry the bones of her deceased hus- 



274 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 

band wherever she went for four years, preserving 
them in such a casket handsomely decorated with 
feathers. 1 The Caribs of the mainland adopted the 
custom for all without exception. About a year 
after death the bones were cleaned, bleached, painted, 
wrapped in odorous balsams, placed in a wicker 
basket, and kept suspended from the door of their 
dwellings. 2 When the quantity of these heirlooms 
became burdensome, they were removed to some in- 
accessible cavern, and stowed away with reverential 
care. Such was the cave Ataruipe, a visit to which 
has been so eloquently described by Alexander von 
Humboldt in his "Views of Nature." 

So great was the respect for these remains by the 
Indians, that on the Mississippi, in Peru, and else- 
where, no tyranny, no cruelty, so embittered the 
indigenes against the white explorers as the sacrile- 
gious search for treasures perpetrated among the 
sepulchres of past generations. Unable to under- 
stand the meaning of such deep feeling, so foreign to 
the European who, without a second thought, turns 
a cemetery into a public square, or seeds it down in 
wheat, the Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay accuse 
the natives of worshipping the skeletons of their 
forefathers, 3 and the English in Virginia repeated it 
of the Powhatans. 

I may here say a few words of ancestral worship 
in general. In origin, it is a branch of the religion 
of sex, for only when the ties of relationship are 

1 Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 260. 

2 Gumilla, Hist, del Orinoco, i. pp. 199, 202, 204. 

3 Ruis, Conquista Espiritual del Paraguay, p. 48, in Lafitau. 



ANCESTRAL WORSHIP. 



275 



somewhat strongly felt, can it arise. In America it 
existed, but was not prominent. The Knisteneaux 
on Nelson river were accustomed to strangle their 
parents when old ; yet each master of a family, the 
deed performed, kept by him a bunch of feathers 
tied with a string, called it his "father's head," and 
looked upon it with most superstitious reverence. 1 
The Aztecs celebrated a feast to the dead once in 
each year, at which time they gazed to the north and 
called upon their ancestors to " come soon, for we 
await you." 2 TheTupis worshipped Tamoin and the 
Incas Pacarina, names which represented " the fore- 
father of the clan idealized as the soul or essence of 
his descendants." 3 And this somewhat subtle ex- 
planation of an able writer, recondite as it may seem 
for a savage mind, was the prevailing form of ances- 
tral worship in the New World. 

The question has been debated and variously an- 
swered, whether the art of mummification was known 
and practised in America. Without entering into 
the discussion, it is certain that preservation of the 
corpse by a long and thorough process of exsiccation 
over a slow fire was nothing unusual, not only in 
Peru, Popoyan, the Carib countries, and Nicaragua, 

1 J. Robson, Ac. of Res. in Hudson's Bay, p. 48. 

2 Codex Telleriano-Remensis , p. 192. 

3 Clements R. Markham, Jour. Roy. Geog. Soc, 1871, p. 291. 
Compare Ives d'Evreux, Hist, de Maragnan, pp. 91, 92. When 
Markham adds that the actual body of the ancestor was wor- 
shipped under the name mcdqui, I believe he is in error. This 
is not a true Quichua word, as M. Leonce Angrand points out 
in a note to Desjardins, Ancien Perou. It is not in Iiolguin's 
Diccionario. In modern Quichua it means simply mummy. 



27G 



THE SOUL AXD ITS DESTINY. 



but among many of the tribes north of the Gulf of 
Mexico, as I have elsewhere shown. 1 The object 
was essentially the same as when the bones alone 
were preserved ; and in the case of rulers, the same 
respect was often paid to their corpses as had been 
the due of their living bodies. 

The opinion underlying all .these customs was, that 
a part of the soul, or one of the souls, dwelt in the 
bones ; that these were the seeds which, planted in 
the earth, or preserved unbroken in safe places, would, 
in time, put on once again a garb of flesh, and ger- 
minate into living: human beings. Lansruasre illus- 
trates this not unusual theory. The Iroquois word 
for bone is esken — for soul, atisJcen, literally that 
■which is within the bone. 2 In an Athapascan dia- 
lect bone is yard, soul i-yune. 3 The Hebrew Rabbis 
taught that in the bone lutz, the coccyx, remained at 
death the germ of a second life, which, at the proper 
time, would develop into the purified body, as the 
plant from the seed. 

But mythology and superstitions add more decisive 
testimony. One of the Aztec legends of the origin of 
man was, that after one of the destructions of the 
world the gwls took counsel together how to renew 
the species. It was decided that one of their num- 
ber, Xolotl, should descend to Mictlan, the realm of 
the dead, and bring thence a bone of the perished 
race. The fragments of this they sprinkled with 
blood, and on the fourth day it grew into a youth, 

1 Nates on the Floridian Peninsula, pp. 191 sqq. 

2 Bruyas, Had. Verborum Iroquceorum. 

3 Buschmaun, Aihapa.sk. Sprachstamm, pp. 1S2, 1S8. 



THE SOUL IN THE BONES. 



277 



the father of the present race. 1 The profound mys- 
tical significance of this legend is reflected in one told 
by the Quiches, in which the hero gods Hunahpu 
and Xblanque succumb to the rulers of Xibalba, 
the darksome powers of death. Their bodies are 
burned, but their bones are ground in a mill and 
thrown into the waters, lest they should come to life. 
Even this precaution is insufficient — " for these ashes 
did not go far ; they sank to the bottom of the stream, 
where, in the twinkling of an eye, they were changed 
into handsome youths, and their very same features 
appeared anew. On the fifth day they displayed them- 
selves anew, and were seen in the water by the 
people," 2 whence they emerged to overcome and de- 
stroy the powers of death and hell (Xibalba). 

The strongest analogies to these myths are offered 
by the superstitious rites of distant tribes. Some of 
the Tunis of Brazil were wont on the death of a 
relative to dry and pulverize his bones and then mix 
them with their food, a nauseous practice they de- 
fended by asserting that the soul of the dead remained 
in the bones and lived again in the living. 3 Even the 
lower animals were supposed to follow the same law. 
Hardly any of the hunting tribes, before their original 
manners were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted 
the bones of game slain in the chase to be broken, or 
left carelessly about the encampment. They were 
collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. 
Eastman observes that even yet the Dakotas deem it 

1 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. vi. cap. 41. 

2 Le Livre Sacre des Quiches, pp. 175-177. 

3 Muller, Amer. Urrelig., p. 290, after Spix. 



278 



TEE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if the clogs gnaw the 
hones or a woman inadvertently steps over them ; and 
the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the 
same fear among that tribe. The Yurucares of Bo- 
liA'ia carried it to such an inconvenient extent that 
they carefully put by even small fish bones, saying 
that unless this is done the fish and game will dis- 
appear from the country. 1 The traveller on our west- 
ern prairies often notices the buffalo skulls, count- 
less numbers of which bleach on those vast plains, 
arranged in circles and symmetrical piles by the care- 
ful hands of the native hunters. The explanation they 
offer for this custom gives the key to the whole theory 
and practice of preserving the osseous relics of the 
dead, as well human as brute. They say that, " the 
bones contain the spirits of the slain animals, and that 
some time in the future they will rise from the earth, 
re-clothe themselves with flesh, and stock the prairies 
anew." 2 This explanation, which comes to us from 
indisputable authority, sets forth in its true light the 
belief of the red race in a resurrection. It is not 
possible to trace it out in the subtleties with which 
theologians have surrounded it as a dogma. The very 
attempt would be absurd. They never occurred to 
the Indian. He thought that the soul now enjoying 
the delights of the happy hunting grounds would 
some time return to the bones, take on flesh, and live 
again. Such is precisely the much discussed state- 
ment that Garcilasso de la Vega says he often heard 
from the native Peruvians. He adds that so caf eful 

1 D'Orbigny, Annuaire des Voyage?, 1845, p. 77. 

2 Long's Expedition, i. p. 278. 



THE AMERICAN MILLENNIUM. 



279 



were they lest any of the body should he lost that 
they preserved even the parings of their nails and 
clippings of the hair. 1 In contradiction to this the 
writer Acosta has been quoted, who says that the 
Peruvians embalmed their dead because they " had 
no knowledge that the bodies should rise with the 
soul." 2 But, rightly understood, this is a confirmation 
of La Vega's account. Acosta means that the Chris- 
tian doctrine of the body rising from the dust being 
unknown to the Peruvians (which is perfectly true), 
they preserve the body just as it was, so that the 
soul when it returned to earth, as all expected, might 
not be at a loss for a house of flesh. 

The notions thus entertained by the red race on the 
resurrection are peculiar to it, and stand apart from 
those of any other. They did not look for the second 
life to be either better or worse than the present one : 
they regarded it neither as a reward nor a punish- 
ment to be sent back to the world of the living ; nor 
is there satisfactory evidence that it was ever distinctly 
connected with a moral or physical theory of the des- 
tiny of the universe, or even with their prevalent ex- 
pectation of recurrent epochs in the course of nature. 
It is true that a writer whose personal veracity is 
above all doubt, Mr. Adam Hodgson, relates an an- 
cient tradition of the Choctaws, to the effect that the 
present world will be consumed by a conflagration, 
after which it will be reformed pleasanter than it is 
now, and that then the spirits of the dead will return 
to the bones in the bone mounds, flesh will knit 

1 Hist, des Incus, lib. iii. chap. 7. 

2 Hist, of the New Worlds bk. v. chap. 7. 



280 THE SOUL AND ITS DESTINY. 



together their loose joints, and they shall again in- 
habit their ancient territory. 1 

There was also a similar belief among the Eskimos. 
They said that in the course of time the waters will 
overwhelm the land, purify it of the blood of the 
dead, melt the icebergs, and wash away the steep 
rocks. A wind will then drive off the waters, and 
the new land will be peopled by reindeers and young 
seals. Then will He above blow once on the bones 
of the men and twice on those of the women, where- 
upon they will at once start into life, and lead there- 
after a joyous existence. 2 

But though there is nothing in these narratives 
alien to the course of thought in the native mind, yet 
as the date of the first is recent (1820), as they are 
not supported (so far as I know) by similar traditions 
elsewhere, and as they may have arisen from Chris- 
tian doctrines of a millenniujn, I leave them for 
future investigation. 

What strikes us the most in this analysis of the 
opinions entertained by the red race on a future 
life is the clear and positive hope of a hereafter, in 
such strong contrast to the feeble and vague notions 
of the ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans, and 
yet the entire inertness of this hope in Reading them 
to a purer moral life. It offers another proof that 
the fulfilment of duty is in its nature nowise con- 
nected with or derived from a consideration of ulti- 
mate personal consequences. It is another evidence 

1 Travel i in North America, p. 280. 

2 Egede, Naclirichten von Gronland, p. 156. 



THE AMERICAN MILLENNIUM. 281 

that the religious is wholly distinct from the moral 
sentiment, and that the origin of ethics is not to be 
sought in connection with the ideas of divinity and 
personal survival* 



CHAPTER X. 

THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 

Their titles.— Practitioners of the healing art by supernatural means.— 
Their power derived from natural magic and the exercise of the clair- 
voyant and mesmeric faculties. — Examples. — Epidemic hysteria. — 
Their social position. — Their duties as religious functionaries. — Terms 
of admission to the Priesthood. — Inner organization in various nations. 
— Their esoteric languages and secret societies. 

THUS picking painfully amid the ruins of a race 
gone to wreck centuries ago, thus rejecting 
much foreign rubbish and scrutinizing each stone 
that lies around, if we still are unable to rebuild the 
edifice in its pristine symmetry, yet we can at least 
discern and trace the ground plan and outlines of the 
fane. Before leaving the field to the richer returns 
of more fortunate workmen, it will not be inappro- 
priate to add a sketch of the ministers of these reli- 
gions, the servants in this temple. 

Shamans, conjurors, sorcerers, medicine men, 
wizards, and many another hard name have been 
given them, but I shall call them priests, for in their 
poor way, as well as any other priesthood, they set- 
up to be the agents of the gods, and the interpreters 
of divinity. No tribe was so devoid of religious senti- 
ment as to be without them. Their power was ter- 
rible, and their use of it unscrupulous. Neither men 
nor gods, death nor life, the winds nor the waves, 



MEDICINE vs. THEOLOGY. 



283 



were beyond their control. Like Old Men of the 
Sea, they have clung to the neck of their nations, 
throttling all attempts at progress, binding them to 
the thraldom of superstition and profligacy, dragging 
them down to wretchedness and death. Christianity 
and civilization meet in them their most determined, 
most implacable foes. But what is this but the story 
of priestcraft and intolerance everywhere, which Old 
Spain can repeat as well as New Spain, the white 
race as well as the red ? Blind leaders of the blind, 
dupers and duped fall into the ditch. 

In their own languages they are variously called ; 
by the Algonkins and Dakotas, "those knowing divine 
things " and " dreamers of the gods " (manitou-siou, 
wakanwacipi) ; in Mexico, " masters or guardians 
of the divine things " (teopixqui, teotecuhtli) ; in 
Cherokee their title means, "possessed of the di- 
vine fire " Qatsilung helawlii) ; in Iroquois, "keepers of 
the faith " (Jionund.eunt^) ; in Quichua, " the learned " 
(amautd)\ in Maya, " the listeners " (cocome). The 
popular term in French and English of " medicine 
men" is not such a misnomer as might be supposed. 
Hie noble science of medicine is connected with 
divinity not only by the rudest savage but the pro- 
foundest philosopher, as has been already adverted to. 
When sickness is looked upon as the effect of the 
anger of a god, or as the malicious infliction of a 
sorcerer, it is natural to seek help from those who 
assume to control the unseen world, and influence the 
fiats of the Almighty. The recovery from disease is 
the kindliest exhibition of divine power. Therefore 
the earliest canons of medicine in India and Egypt 
are attributed to no less distinguished authors than 



284 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



the gods Brahma and Thoth ; 1 therefore the earliest 
practitioners of the healing art are universally the 
ministers of religion. 

But, however creditable this origin is to medicine, 
its partnership with theology was no particular 
advantage to it. These mystical doctors shared the 
disdain still so prevalent among ourselves for a 
treatment based on experiment and reason, and re- 
garded the administration of emetics and purgatives, 
tonics and diuretics, with a contempt quite equal to 
that of the disciples of Hahnemann. The practitioners 
of the rational school formed a separate class among 
the Indians, and had nothing to dp with amulets, 
powwows, or spirits. 2 They were of different name 
and standing, and though held in less estimation, such 
valuable additions to the pharmacopoeia as guaiacum, 
cinchona, and ipecacuanha, were learned from them. 
The priesthood scorned such ignoble means. Were 
they summoned to a patient, they drowned his 
groans in a barbarous clangor of instruments in order 
to fright away the demon that possessed him ; they 
sucked and blew upon the diseased organ; they 
sprinkled him with water, and catching it again threw 
it on the ground, thus drowning out the disease ; they 
rubbed the part with their hands, and exhibiting a 
bone or splinter asserted that they drew it from the 
body, and that it had been the cause of the malady; 
they manufactured a little image to represent the 
spirit of sickness, and spitefully knocked it to pieces, 
thus vicariously destroying its prototj^pe ; they sang 

1 Haeser, Geschichte der Medicin^V- 4> 7: Jena, 1845. 

2 Schoolcraft, hid. Tribes, v. p. 440. 



MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 



285 



doleful and monotonous chants at the top of their 
voices, screwed their countenances into hideous 
grimaces, twisted their bodies into unheard of contor- 
tions, and by all accounts did their utmost to merit 
the honorarium they demanded for their services. A 
double motive spurred them to spare no pains. For 
if they failed, not only was their reputation gone, but 
the next expert called in was likely enough to hint, 
with that urbanity so traditional in the profession, 
that the illness was in fact caused or much increased 
by the antagonistic nature of the remedies previous- 
ly employed, whereupon the chances were that the 
doctor's life fell into greater jeopardy than that of his 
quondam patient. 

Considering the probable result of this treatment, 
we may be allowed to doubt whether it redounded on 
the whole very much to the honor of the fraternity. 
Their strong points are rather to be looked for in the 
real knowledge gained by a solitary and reflective 
life, by an earnest study of the appearances of nature, 
and of those hints and forest signs which are wholly 
lost on the white man and beyond the ordinary insight 
of a native. Travellers often tell of changes of the 
weather predicted by them with astonishing foresight 
and of information of singular accuracy and extent 
gleaned from most meagre materials. There is nothing 
in this to shock our sense of probability- — much to 
elevate our opinion of the native sagacity. They 
were also adepts in tricks -of sleight of hand, and 
had no mean acquaintance with what is called nat- 
ural magic. They would allow themselves to be tied 
hand and foot with knots innumerable, and at a sign 
would shake them loose as so many wisps of straw ; 



250 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



they would spit fire and swallow hot coals, pick 
glowing stones from the flames, walk naked over burn- 
ing brush, and plunge their arms to the shoulder in 
kettles of boiling water with apparent impunity. 1 
Nor was this all. With a skill not inferior to that 
of the jugglers of India, they could plunge knives 
into vital parts, vomit blood, or kill one another out 
and out to all appearances, and yet in a few minutes 
be as well as ever : they could set fire to articles of 
clothing and even houses, and by a touch of their 
magic restore them instantly as perfect as before. 2 
If it were not within our power to see most of these 
miracles performed any night in our great cities by 
a well dressed professional, we would at once deny 
their possibility. As it is, they astonish us but little. 

One of the most characteristic exhibitions of their 
power was to summon a spirit to answer inquiries 
concerning the future and the absent. A great 
similarity marked this proceeding in all northern 
tribes from the Eskimos to the Mexicans. A circu- 
lar or conical lodge of stout poles four or eight in 
number planted firmly in the ground, was covered 
with skins or mats, a small aperture only being left 
for the seer to enter. Once in, he carefully closed 
the hole and commenced his incantations. Soon the 
lodge trembles, the strong poles shake and bend as 
with the united strength of a dozen men, and 
strange, unearthly sounds, now far aloft in the air, 

1 Carver, Travels in North America, p. 73 ; Boston, 1S02 : Nar- 
rative of John Tanner, p. 135. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. x. cap. 20 : Le 
Livre Sacre des Quiches, p. 177 : Lett, sur les Superstit. du Perou, 
pp. 89, 91. 



MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 



287 



now deep in the ground, anon approaching near and 
nearer, reach the ears of the spectators At length 
the priest announces that the spirit is present, and 
is prepared to answer questions. An indispensable 
preliminary to any inquiry is to insert a handful of 
tobacco, or a string of beads, or some such douceur 
under the skins, ostensibly for the behoof of the 
celestial visitor, who would seem not to be above 
earthly wants and vanities. The replies received, 
though occasionally singularly clear and correct, are 
usually of that ambiguous purport which leaves the 
inquirer little wiser than he was before. For all 
this, ventriloquism, trickery, and shrewd knavery 
are sufficient explanations. Nor does it materially 
interfere with this view, that converted Indians, on 
whose veracity we can rely, have repeatedly averred 
that in performing this rite they themselves did not 
move the medicine lodge ; for nothing is easier than 
in the state of nervous excitement they were then in 
to be self-deceived, as the now familiar phenomenon 
of table-turning illustrates. 

But there is something more than these vulgar 
arts now and then to be perceived. There are 
statements supported by unquestionable testimony, 
which ought not to be passed over in silence, and 
yet I cannot but approach them with hesitation. 
They are so revolting to the laws of exact science, 
so alien, I had almost said, to the experience of our 
lives. Yet is this true, or are such experiences 
only ignored and put aside without serious consider- 
ation ? Are there not in the history of each of us 
passages which strike our retrospective thought with 
awe, almost with terror ? Are there not in nearly 



288 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



every community individuals who- possess a mysteri- 
ous power, concerning whose origin, mode of action, 
and limits, we and they are alike in the dark? I 
refer to such organic forces as are popularly summed 
up under the words clairvoyance, mesmerism, rhab- 
domancy, animal magnetism, physical spiritualism. 
Civilized thousands stake their faith and hope here 
and hereafter on the truth of these manifestations ; 
rational medicine recognizes their existence, and 
while she attributes them to morbid and exceptional 
influences, confesses her want of more exact knowl- 
edge, and refrains from barren theorizing. Let us 
follow her example, and hold it enough to show that 
, such powers, whatever they are, were known to the 
native priesthood as well as the modern spiritualists 
and the miracle mongers of the Middle Ages. 

Their highest development is Avhat our ancestors 
called " second sight." That under certain condi- 
tions knowledge can pass from one mind to another 
otherwise than through the ordinarv channels of the 
senses, is claimed to be shown by the examples of 
persons en rapport. The limit to this we do not know, 
but it is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second 
sight is based upon it. In his autobiography, the 
celebrated Sac chief Black Hawk, relates that his 
great grandfather " was inspired by a belief that at the 
end of four years he should see a white man, who 
would be to him a father." Under the direction of 
this vision he travelled eastward to a certain spot, 
and there, as he was forewarned, met a Frenchman, 
through whom the nation was brought into alliance 
with France. 1 No one at all versed in the Indian 

1 Life of Black Hawk, p. 13. 



THE POWER OF SECOND SIGHT. 



289 



character will doubt the implicit faith with which 
this legend was told and heard. But we may be 
pardoned our skepticism, seeing there are so many 
chances of error. It is not so with an anecdote re- 
lated by Captain Jonathan Carver, a cool-headed 
English trader, whose little book of travels is a 
good authority. In 1767 he was among the Killis- 
tenoes at a time when they were in great straits for 
food, and depending upon the arrival of the traders 
to rescue them from starvation. They persuaded 
the chief priest to consult the divinities as to when 
the relief would arrive. After the usual preliminaries, 
this magnate announced that next day, precisely 
when the sun reached the zenith, a canoe would ar- 
rive with further tidings. At the appointed hour 
the whole village, together with the incredulous 
Englishman, was on the beach, and sure enough, at 
the minute specified, a canoe swung round a distant 
point of land, and rapidly approaching the shore 
brought the expected news. 1 

Charlevoix is nearly as trustworthy a writer as 
Carver. Yet he deliberately relates an equally sin- 
gular instance. 2 

But these examples are surpassed by one described 
in the Atlantic Monthly of July, 1866, the author of 
which, Gen. John Mason Brown, has assured me of 
its accuracy in every particular. Some years since, 
at the head of a party of voyageurs, he set forth in 
search of a band of Indians somewhere on the vast 
plains along the tributaries of the Copper-mine and 

1 Travs. in North America, p. 74. 

2 Journal Tlistorique, p. 862. 

19 



290 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



Mackenzie rivers. Danger, disappointment, and the 
fatigues of the road, induced one after another to 
turn back, until of the original ten only three remain- 
ed. They also were on the point of giving up the 
apparently hopeless quest, when they were met by 
some warriors of the very band they were seeking. 
These had been sent out by one of their medicine men 
to find three whites, whose horses, arms, attire, and 
personal appearance he minutely described, which 
description was repeated to Gen. Brown by the war- 
riors before they saw his two companions. "When 
afterwards, the priest, a frank and simple-minded man, 
was asked to explain this extraordinary occurrence, 
he could offer no other explanation than that " he 
saw them coining, and heard them talk on their jour- 
ney." 1 

Many tales such as these have been recorded by 
travellers, and however much they may shock our 
sense of probability, as well-authenticated exhibitions 
of a power which sways the Indian mind, and which 
has ever prejudiced it so unchangeably against Chris- 
tianity and civilization, they cannot be disregarded. 
Whether they too are but specimens of refined 
knavery, or whether they are instigations of the 
Devil, or whether they must be classed with other 
facts as illustrating certain obscure and curious men- 

1 Sometimes facts like this can be explained by the quickness 
of perception acquired by constant exposure to danger. The 
mind takes cognizance unconsciously of trifling incidents, the 
sum of which leads it to a conviction which the individual 
regards almost as an inspiration. This is the explanation of 
presentiments. 



THE PO WER OF SECOND SIGHT. 



291 



tal faculties, each may decide as the bent of his mind 
inclines him, for science makes no decision. 

Those nervous conditions associated with the name 
of Mesmer were nothing new to the Indian magi- 
cians. Rubbing and stroking the sick, and the lay - 
ing on of hands, were common parts of their clinical 
procedures, and at the initiations to their societies 
they were frequently exhibited. Observers have 
related that among the Nez Perces of Oregon, the 
novice was put to sleep by songs, incantations, and 
* certain passes of the hand," and that with the Da- 
kotas he would be struck lightly on the breast at a 
preconcerted moment, and instantly " would drop 
prostrate on his face, his muscles rigid and quivering 
in every fibre." i 

There is no occasion to suppose deceit in this. It 
finds its parallel in every race and every age, and 
rests on a characteristic trait of certain epochs and 
certain men, which leads them to seek the divine, 
not in contemplation on the laws of the universe and 
the facts of self consciousness, but in an immolation 
of the latter, a sinking of their own individuality in 
that of the spirits whose alliance they seek. This is 
an outgrowth of that ignoring of the universality of 
Law which belongs to the lower stages of enlight- 
enment. 2 And as this is never done with impunity, 
but with certainty brings a punishment with it, the 
study of the mental conditions thus evoked, and the 

1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, Hi. p. 287; v. p. 652. 

2 1 ' The progress from deepest ignorance to enlightenment," 
remarks Herbert Spencer in his Social Statics, " is a progress 
from entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that law is 
universal and inevitable." 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



results which follow them, offers a salutary subject 
of reflection to the theologian as well as the physi- 
cian. For these examples of nervous pathology are 
identical in kind, and alike in consequences, whether 
witnessed in the primitive forests of the New World, 
among the convulsionists of St. Medarcl, or in the 
scenes of a religious revival in one of our own 
churches. 

Sleeplessness and abstemiousness, carried to the 
verge of endurance — seclusion, and the pertinacious 
fixing of the mind on one subject — obstinate gloating 
on some morbid fancy, rarely failed to bring about 
hallucinations with all the garb of reality. Physicians 
are well aware that the more frequently these diseased 
conditions of the mind are sought, the more readily 
they are found. Then, again, they were often induced 
by intoxicating and narcotic herbs. Tobacco, the 
maguey, coca ; in California the chucuaco ; among 
the Mexicans the snake plant, ollinhiqui or coaxihuitl ; 
and among the southern tribes of our own country 
the cassine yupon and iris versicolor, 1 were used ; 

1 The Creeks had, according to Hawkins, not less than seven 
sacred plants ; chief of them were the cassine yupon, called by 
botanists Ilex vomitoria, or Ilex cassina, of the natural order 
Aquifoliacese ; and the blue flag, Iris versicolor, natural order 
Iridacese. The former is a powerful diuretic and mild emetic, 
and grows only near the sea. The latter is an active emeto- fi 
cathartic, and is abundant on swampy grounds throughout the 
Southern States. From it was formed the celebrated " black 
drink," with which they opened their councils, and which 
served them in place of spirits. Two of the others were 
Eryngium aquaticum and Salix Candida. For further concerning 
them see my National Legend of the Clialda-Muskokee Tribes, 
pp. 8,11. 



THE DIVINE MADNESS. 



293 



and, it is even said, were cultivated for this purpose. 
The seer must work himself up to a prophetic fury, 
or speechless, lie in apparent death, before the mind 
of the gods would be opened to him. Trance and 
ecstasy were the two avenues he knew to divinity; 
fasting and seclusion the means employed to discover 
them. His ideal was of a prophet who dwelt far 
from men, without need of food, in constanfrcommun- 
ion with divinity. Such a one, in the legends of the 
Tupis, resided on a mountain glittering with gold and 
silver, near the river Uaupe, his only companion a 
dog, his only occupation dreaming of the gods. When, 
however, an eclipse was near, his dog would bark; 
and then, taking the form of a bird, he would fly 
over the villages, and learn the changes that "had 
taken place. 1 

But man cannot trample with impunity on the 
laws of his physical life, and the consequences of 
these deprivations and morbid excitements of the 
brain show themselves in terrible pictures. Not un- 
frequently they were carried to the pitch of raving 
mania, reminding one of the worst forms of the Ber- 
serker fury of the Scandinavians, or the Bacchic rage 
of Greece. The enthusiast, maddened with the 
fancies of a disordered intellect, would start forth 
from his seclusion in an access of frenzy. Then woe 
to the dog, the child, the slave, or the woman who 
crossed his path ; for nothing but blood could satisfy 
his craving, and they fell instant victims to his mad- 
ness. But were it a strong man, he bared his arm, 
and let the frenzied hermit bury his teeth in the 

1 Martius, Von dem Rechtzustande unter den Ureinwohnem 
Brasiliens,]). 32. 



294 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



flesh. Such is a scene at this day not uncommon on 
the northwest coast, and few of the natives around 
Milbank Sound are without the scars the result of 
this custom. 1 

This frenzy, terrible enough in individuals, had 
its most disastrous effects when with that facility 
of contagion which marks hysterical maladies, it 
swept through whole villages, transforming them 
into bedlams filled with unrestrained madmen- 
Those who have studied the strange mental epi- 
demics that visited Europe in the middle ages, such 
as the tarantula dance of Apulia,the chorea German- 
orum, and the great St. Vitus' dance, will be prepared 
to appreciate the nature of a scene at a Huron vil- 
lage; described by Father le Jeune in 1639. A 
festival of three days and three nights had been in 
progress to relieve a woman who, from the descrip- 
tion, seems to have been suffering from some obscure 
nervous complaint. Toward the close of this vigil, 
which throughout was marked by all sorts of de- 
baucheries and excesses, all the participants seemed 
suddenly seized by ten thousand devils. They ran 
howling and shrieking through the town, breaking 
everything destructible in the cabins, killing dogs, 
beating the women and children, tearing their gar- 
ments, and scattering the fires in every direction with 
bare hands and feet. Some of them dropped sense- 
less, to remain long or permanently insane, but the 
others continued until worn out with exhaustion. 
The Father learned that during these orgies not 
unfrequently whole villages were consumed, and the 

1 Mr. Anderson, in the Am. Hist. Mag., vii. p. 79. 



THE PO WER OF THE PRIESTS. 



295 



total extirpation of some families had resulted. No 
wonder that he saw in them the workings of the 
prince of evil, but the physician is rather inclined to 
class them with cases of epidemic hysteria, the com- 
mon products of violent and ill-directed mental stim- 
uli. 1 

These various considerations prove that the author- 
ity of the priesthood did by no means rest exclusively 
on deception. They indorse and explain the asser- 
tions of converted natives, that their power as 
prophets was something real, and inexplicable to 
themselves. And they make it understood how 
those missionaries failed who attempted to persuade 
them that all this boasted power was false. More 
correct views than these ought to have been sugges- 
ted by the facts themselves, for these magicians did 
not hesitate at times to test their strength on each 
other. In these strange duels d outrance, one would 
be seated opposite his antangonist, surrounded with 
the mysterious emblems of his craft, and call upon 
his gods one after another to strike his enemy dead. 

1 Such spectacles were nothing uncommon. They are fre- 
quently mentioned in the Jesuit Relations, and they were the 
chief obstacles to missionary labor. In the debauches and 
excesses that excited these temporary manias, in the reckless- 
ness of life and property they fostered, and in their disastrous 
effects on mind and body, are depicted more than in any other 
one trait the thorough depravity of the race and its tendency 
to ruin. In the quaint words of one of the Catholic fathers, 
" If the old proverb is true that every man has a grain of mad- 
ness in his composition, it must be confessed that this is a peo- 
ple where each has at least half an ounce " (De Quen, Bel. de 
la Nouv. France, 1656, p. 27). For the instance in the text see 
Rel. de la Nouv. France, An 1639, pp. 88-94. 



296 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



Sometimes one, " gathering his medicine," as it was 
termed, feeling within himself that force of will 
which makes itself acknowledged even without words, 
would rise in his might, and in a loud and severe 
voice command his opponent to die ! Straightway 
the latter would drop dead, or yielding m craven 
fear to a superior volition, forsake the implements 
of his art, and with an awful terror at his heart 
creep to his lodge, refuse all nourishment, and pres- 
ently perish. Still more despotic was the tyranny 
they exerted on the minds of the masses. Let an 
Indian once be possessed of the idea that he is 
bewitched, and he will probably reject all food, and 
sink under the phantoms of his own fancy. 

How deep the veneration of these men has struck 
its roots in the soul of the Indian, it is difficult for 
civilized minds to conceive. Their sway is currently 
supposed to be without any bounds, " extending to 
the raising of the dead and the control of all laws of 
nature." 1 The grave bffers no escape from their 
omnipotent arms. The Sacs and Foxes, Algonldn 
tribes, think that the soul cannot leave the corpse 
until set free by the medicine men at their great an- 
nual feast , 2 and the Puelches of Buenos Ayres guard 
a profound silence as they pass by the tomb of some 
redoubted necromancer, lest they should disturb his 
repose, and suffer from his malignant skill. 3 

While thus investigating their real and supposed 
empire over the physical and mental world, their 

1 Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, v. p. 423. 

2 J. M. Stanley, in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contribu- 
tions, ii. p. 38. 

3 D'Orbigny, L Homme Americain, ii. p. 81. 



THE PO WER OF THE PRIESTS. 297 

strictly priestly functions, as performers of the rites 
of religion, have not been touched upon. Among 
the hunting tribes these, indeed, were of the most 
rudimentary character. Sacrifices, chiefly in the 
form of feasts, where every one crammed to his ut- 
most, dances, often winding up with scenes of licen- 
tiousness, the lepetition of long and monotonous 
chants, the making of the new fire, these are the 
ceremonies that satisfy the religious wants of savages. 
The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in 
manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off 
ill luck, in interpreting dreams, and especially in 
lifting the veil of the future. In Peru, for example, 
they were divided into classes, who made the vari- 
ous means of divination specialties. Some caused 
the idols to speak, others derived their foreknowledge 
from words spoken by the dead, others predicted by 
leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, 
while to still other classes the shapes of grains of 
maize taken at random, the appearance of animal 
excrement, the forms assumed by the smoke rising 
from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of ani- 
mals, the course taken by a certain species of spider, 
the visions seen in drunkenness, the flights of birds, 
and the directions in which fruits would fall, all 
offered so many separate fields of prognostication, 
the professors of which were distinguished by differ- 
ent ranks and titles. 1 

As the intellectual force of the nation was chiefly 
centred in this class, they became the acknowledged 
depositaries of its sacred legends, the instructors in 



1 See Balboa, Hist, de Pfrou, pp. 2S-30. 



298 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD 



the art of preserving thought ; and from their duty 
to regulate festivals, sprang the observation of the 
motions of the heavenly bodies, the adjustment of 
the calendars, and the pseudo-science of judicial 
astrology. The latter was carried to as subtle a 
pitch of refinement in Mexico as in the old world; 
and large portions of the ancient writers are taken 
up with explaining the method adopted by the native 
astrologers to cast the horoscope, and reckon the 
nativity of the newly-born infant. 

How was this superior power obtained ? What 
were the terms of admission to this privileged class ? 
In the ruder communities the power was strictly 
personal. It was revealed to its possessor by the 
character of the visions he perceived at the ordeal 
he passed through on arriving at puberty ; and by 
the northern nations was said to be the manifestation 
of a more potent personal spirit than ordinary. Thus 
it is said of the New England Indians that when one 
of them dreamed that his personal spirit appeared to 
him in the form of a serpent, he forthwith called a 
feast and became a pow^joow} It was not a faculty, 
but an inspiration ; not an inborn strength, but a 
spiritual gift. The curious theory of the Dakotas, 
as recorded by the Rev. Mr. Pond, was that the necro- 
mant first wakes to consciousness as a winged seed, 
wafted hither and thither by the intelligent action of 
the Four Winds. In this form he visits the homes 
of the different classes of divinities, and learns the 
chants, feasts, and dances, which it is proper for the 

1 The Bay Breaking of the Gospel with the Indians in New 
England : London, 1647, p. 27. 



ADMISSION TO THE PRIESTHOOD. 



299 



human race to observe, the art of omnipresence or 
clairvoyance, the means of inflicting and healing 
diseases, and the occult secrets of nature, man, and 
divinity. This is called " dreaming of the gods." 
When this instruction is completed, the seed enters 
one about to become a mother, assumes human form, 
and in due time manifests his powers. Four such 
incarnations await it, each of increasing might, and 
then the spirit returns to its original nothingness. 
The same necessity of death and resurrection was 
entertained by the Eskimos. To become of the high- 
est order of priests, it was supposed requisite, says 
Bishop Egede, that an ordinary mortal should be 
drowned and eaten by sea monsters. Then, when 
his bones, one after another, were all washed ashore, 
his spirit, which meanwhile had been learning the 
secrets of the invisible world, would return to them, 
and, clothed in flesh, he would go back to his tribe. 
At other times a vague longing seizes a young person, 
a morbid appetite possesses him, or he falls a prey 
to restlessness, and melancholy. These signs the old 
priests recognize as the expression of a personal 
spirit of the higher order. They take charge of the 
youth, and educate him to the mysteries of their 
craft. For months or years he is condemned to 
seclusion, receiving no visits but from the brethren 
of his order. At length he is initiated with cere- 
monies of more or less pomp into the brotherhood, 
and from that time assumes that gravity of demeanor, 
sententious style of expression, and general air of 
mystery and importance, everywhere deemed be- 
coming in a doctor and a priest. A peculiarity of 
the Moxos was, that they thought none designated 



300 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



for the office but such as had escaped from the claws 
of the South American tiger, 1 which must have effect- 
ually limited the guild. 

Occasionally, in very uncultivated tribes, some 
family or totem claimed a monopoly of the priest- 
hood. Thus, among the ISTez Perce's of Oregon, it 
was transmitted in one family from father to son and 
daughter, but always with the proviso that the chil- 
dren at the proper age reported dreams of a satis- 
factory character. 2 Perhaps alone of the Algonkin 
tribes the Shawnees confined it to one totem, but it 
is remarkable that the greatest of their prophets, 
Elskataway, brother of Tecumseh, was not a member 
of this clan. From the most remote times, the Chero- 
kees have had one family set apart for the priestly 
office. This was when first known to the whites that 
of the Nicotani, but its members, puffed up with 
pride, abused their birthright so shamefully, and pros- 
tituted it so flagrantly to their own advantage, that 
with savage justice they were massacred to the last 
man. Another was appointed in their place which 
to this day officiates in all religious rites. They have, 
however, the superstition, possibly borrowed from 
Europeans, that the seventh son is a natural born 
prophet, with the gift of healing by touch. 3 Adair 
states that their former neighbors, the Choctaws, 
permitted the office of high priest, or Great Beloved 
Man, to remain in one family, passing from father to 
eldest son, and the very influential piaches of the 

1 D'Orbigny, U Homme Americain, ii. p. 235. 

2 Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, v. p. 652. 

3 Dr. MacGowan, in the Amer. Hist. Mag., x. p. 139; Whip- 
ple, Hep. on the Ind. Tribes, p. 35. 



A HEREDITARY PRIESTHOOD. 



301 



Carib tribes very generally transmitted their rank 
and position to their children. 

In ancient Anahnac the prelacy was as systematic 
and its rnles as well defined, as in the Church of 
Rome. Except those in the service of Hnitzilopochtli, 
and perhaps a few other gods, none obtained the 
priestly office by right of descent, but were dedicated 
to it from early childhood. Their education was com- 
pleted at the Calmecac, a sort of ecclesiastical college,, 
where instruction was given in all the wisdom of the 
ancients, and the esoteric lore of their craft. The 
art of mixing colors and tracing designs, the ideo- 
graphic writing and phonetic hieroglyphs, the songs 
and prayers used in public worship, the national tra- 
ditions, and the principles of astrology, the hidden 
meaning of symbols and the use of musical instru- 
ments, all formed parts of the really extensive course 
of instruction they there received. When they mani- 
fested a satisfactory acquaintance with this curricu- 
lum, they were appointed by their superiors to such 
positions as their natural talents and the use they had 
made of them qualified them for, some to instruct 
children, others to the service of the temples, and 
others again to take charge of what we may call 
country parishes. Implicit subordination of all to 
the high priest of Huitzilopochtli, hereditary pont/fex 
rnaximus, chastity, or at least temperate indulgence 
in pleasure, gravity of carriage and strict attention 
to duty, were laws laid upon all. 

The state religion of Peru was conducted under the 
supervison of a high priest of the Inca family, and 
its ministers, as in Mexico, could be of either sex, and 
hold office either by inheritance, education, or elec- 



302 



THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 



tion. For political reasons, the most important posts 
were usually enjoyed by relatives of the ruler, but 
this was usage, not law. It is stated by Garcilasso 
cle la Yega 1 that they served in the temples by 
turns, each being on duty the fourth of a lunar month 
at a time. Were this substantiated it would offer 
the only example of the regulation of public life by a 
week of seven days to be found in the Xew World. 

In every country there is perceptible a desire in 
this class of men to surround themselves with mys- 
tery, and to concentrate and increase their power by 
forming an alliance among themselves. They affect- 
ed singularity in dress and a professional costume. 
Bartram describes the junior priests of the Creeks 
as dressed in white robes and carrying on their head 
or arm " a great owlskin, stuffed very ingeniously, as 
an insignia of wisdom and divination. These bach- 
elors are also distinguishable from the other people 
by their taciturnity, grave and solemn countenance, 
dignified step, and singing to themselves songs or 
hymns, in a low sweet voice, as they stroll about the 
towns." 2 The priests of the civilized nations adopted 
various modes of dress to typify the divinity which 
they served, and their appearance was often in the 
highest degree unprepossessing. 

To add to their self-importance they pretended to 
converse in a tongue different from that used in ordi- 
nary life, and the chants containing the prayers and 
legends were often in this esoteric dialect. Fra^- 
ments of one or two of these have floated down to 

1 Hist, fles Incaa. lib. iii. ch. 22. 

2 Travels in the Carolinas, p. 504. 



THE ESOTERIC LANGUAGE. 



303 



us from the Aztec priesthood. The travellers Balboa 
and Coreal mention that the temple services of Peru 
were conducted in a language not understood by the 
masses, 1 and the incantations of the priests of Pow- 
hatan were not in ordinary Algonkin, but some ob- 
scure jargon. 2 The same peculiarity has been ob- 
served among the Dakotas and Eskimos, and in these 
nations, fortunately, it fell under the notice of com- 
petent linguistic scholars, who have submitted it to a 
searching examination. The results of their labors 
prove that certainly in these two instances- the sup- 
posed foreign tongues were nothing more than the 

1 Hist, de Perou, p. 128; Voiages aux Indes Occidentals, ii. 
p. 97. 

2 Beverly, Hist, de la Virginie, p. 266. The dialect he speci- 
fies is " celle d' Occaniches," and on page 252 he says, "On 
dit que la langue universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est 
celle des Occaniches, quoiqu'ils ne soient qu'une petite Nation, 
depuis que les Angiois connoissent ce Pais ; mais je ne saispas 
la difference qui'ly a entre cette langue et celle des Algonkins." 
(French trans., Orleans, 1707.) This is undoubtedly the same 
people that Johannes Lederer, a German traveller, visited in 
1670, and calls Akenatzi. They dwelt on an island, in a branch 
of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River (Lederer's 
Discovery of North America, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). 
Thirty years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in 
the same spot, and speaks of them as the Acanechos (see Am. 
Hist. Mag., i. p. 163). Their totem was that of the serpent, 
and their name is not altogether rvnlike the Tuscarora name of 
this animal usquauhne. As the serpent was so widely a sacred 
animal, this gives Beverly's remarks an unusual significance. 
It by no means follows from this name that they were of Iro- 
quois descent. Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Troquois) 
interpreter, who gave them their name in his own tongue. 
On the contrary, it is extremely probable t^at they were an Al- 
gonkin totem, which had the exclusive right to the priesthood. 



304 THE NATIVE PRIESTHOOD. 

ordinary dialects of the country modified by an af- 
fected accentuation, by the introduction of a few cab- 
alistic terms, and by the use of circumlocutions and 
figurative words in place of ordinary expressions, a 
slang, in short, such as rascals and pedants are very 
apt to coin. 1 

All these stratagems were intended to shroud with 
impenetrable secrecy the mysteries of the brother- 
hood. With the same motive, the priests formed 
societies of different grades of illumination, only to 
be entered by those willing to undergo trying ordeals, 
whose secrets were not to be revealed under the 
severest penalties. The Algonkins had three such 
grades, the waubeno, the meda, and ike jossakeed, the 
last beino; the highest. To this no white man was 
ever admitted. All tribes appear to have been con- 
trolled by these secret societies. Alexander von 
Humboldt mentions one, called that of the Botuto or 
Holy Trumpet, among the Indians of the Orinoco, 
whose members must vow celibacy and submit to 
severe scourgings and fasts. The Collahuayas of 
Peru were a guild of itinerant quacks and magicians, 
who never remained permanently in one spot. 

Withal, there was no class of persons who so 
widely influenced the culture and shaped the destiny 
of the Indian tribes as their priests. In attempting 
to gain a true conception of the race's capacities and 
history, there is no one element of their social life 

i Riggs, Gram, and Did. of the Dakota, p. 9 ; Kane, Second 
Grinnell Expedition, ii. p. 127. Paul Egede gives a number of 
words and expressions in the dialect of the sorcerers, Nacknch- 
ten von Gronland, p. 122. 



THE ESOTERIC LANGUAGE. 



305 



which demands closer attention than the power of 
these teachers. Hitherto, they have been spoken of 
with a contempt which I hope this chapter shows is 
unjustifiable. However much we may deplore the 
use they made of their skill, we must estimate it fairly, 
and grant it its due weight in measuring the influ- 
ence of the religious sentiment on the history of man. 

20 



CHAPTER XL 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATIVE RELIGIONS ON THE 
MORAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE RACE. 

Natural religions hitherto considered of Evil rather than of Good.— Dis- 
tinctions to be drawn. — Morality not derived from religion. — The posi- 
tive side of natural religions in incarnations of divinity. — Examples. — 
Prayers as indices of religious progress. — Religion and social advance- 
ment. —Conclusion. 

DRAWING toward the conclusion of my essay, I 
am sensible that the vast field of American 
mythology remains for the most part untouched — 
that I have but proved that it is not an absolute 
wilderness, pathless as the tropical jungles which 
now conceal the temples of the race ; but that, go 
where we will, certain landmarks and guide-posts 
are visible, revealing uniformity of design and pur- 
pose, and refuting, by their presence, the oft-repeated 
charge of incoherence and aimlessness. It remains 
to examine the subjective power of the native re- 
ligions, their influence on those who held them, and 
the place they deserve in the history of the race. 
What are their merits, if merits they have? what 
their demerits? Did they purify the life and en- 
lighten the mind, or the contrary? Are they in short 
of evil or of good? The problem is complex — its 
solution most difficult. An author who studied pro- 
foundly the savage races of the globe, expressed the 
discouraging conviction : " Their religions have not 



TOLERANCE OF NATURAL RELIGIONS. 307 



acted as levers to raise them to civilization ; they 
have rather worked, and that powerfully, to impede 
every step in advance, in the first place by ascribing 
everything unintelligible in nature to spiritual 
agency, and then by making the fate of man depend- 
ent on mysterious and capricious forces, not on his 
own skill and foresight." 1 

It would ill accord with the theory of mythology 
which I have all along maintained if this verdict 
were final. But in fact these false doctrines brought 
with them their own antidotes, at least to some ex- 
tent, and while we give full weight to their evil, let 
us also acknowledge their good. By substituting 
direct divine interference for law, belief for knowl- 
edge, a dogma for a fact, the highest stimulus to 
mental endeavor was taken away. Nature, to the 
heathen, is no harmonious whole swayed by eternal 
principles, but a chaos of causeless effects, the mean- 
ingless play of capricious ghosts. He investigates 
not, because he doubts not. All events are to him 
miracles. Therefore his faith knows no bounds, and 
those who teach that doubt is sinful must contem- 
plate him with admiration. The damsels of Nica- 
ragua destined to be thrown into the craters of vol- 
canoes, went to their fate, says Pascual de Anda- 
goya, " happy as if they were going to be saved," 2 
and doubtless believing so. The subjects of a Cen- 
tral American chieftain, remarks Oviedo, " look upon 
it as the crown of favors to be permitted to die with 
their cacique, and thus to acquire immortality." 3 



1 Waitz, Anthropologic der Naiurvoelker, i. p. 459. 

2 Navarrete, Viages, iii. p. 415. 

3 Relation de Cueba, p. 140. Ed. Teruaux-Compans. 



SOS INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 

The power exerted by the priest's rested, as they 
themselves often saw, largely on the implicit accept- 
ance of their dicta. 

In some respects the contrast here offered to en- 
lightened nations is not in favor of the latter. Bor- 
rowing the antithesis of the poet, one might exclaim — 

"This is all 

The gain we reap from all the -wisdom sown 
Through ages : Nothing doubted those first sons 
Of Time, while we, the schooled of centuries, 
Nothing believe." 

But the complaint is unfounded. Faith is dearly 
bought at the cost of knowledge; nor in a better 
sense has it gone from among us. Far more sub- 
lime than any known to the barbarian is the faith of 
the astronomer, who spends the nights in marking 
the seemingly wayward motions of the stars, or of 
the anatomist, who studies with unwearied zeal the 
minute fibres of the organism, each upheld by the 
unshaken conviction that from least to greatest 
throughout this universe, purpose and order every- 
where prevail. 

Natural religions rarely offer more than this nega- 
tive opposition to reason. They are tolerant to a 
degree. The savage, void of any clear conception of 
a supreme deity, sets up no claim that his is the only 
true church. If he is conquered in battle, he imagiu es 
that it is owing to the inferiority of his own gods to 
those of his victor, and he rarely therefore requires 
any other reasons to make him a convert. Acting 
on this principle, the Incas, when they overcame a 
strange province, sent its most venerated idol for a 
time to the temple of the Sun at Cuzco, thus proving 



TOLERANCE OF RELIGIONS. 



309 



its inferiority to their own divinity, but took no more 
violent steps to propagate their creeds. 1 So in the 
city of Mexico there was a temple appropriated to 
the idols of conquered nations in which they were 
shut up, both to prove their weakness and prevent 
them from doing mischief. A nation, like an indi- 
vidual, was not inclined to patronize a deity who had 
manifested his incompetence by allowing his charge 
to be worn away by disaster. As far as can now be 
seen, in matters intellectual, the religions of ancient 
Mexico and Peru were far more liberal than that 
introduced by the Spanish conquerors, which, claim- 
ing the monopoly of truth, sought to enforce its claim 
by inquisitions and censorships. 

In this view of the relative powers of deities lay a 
potent corrective to the doctrine that the fate of man 
was dependent on the caprices of the gods. For no 
belief was more universal than that which assigned 
to each individual a guardian spirit. This invisible 
monitor . was an ever present help in trouble. He 
suggested expedients, gave advice and warning in 
dreams, protected in danger, and stood ready to foil 
the machinations of enemies, divine or human. With 
unlimited faith in this protector, attributing to him 
the fortunate chances of life and the devices suggested 
by his own quick wits, the savage escaped the oppres- 
sive thought that he was the slave of demoniac forces, 
and dared the dangers of the forest and the war path 
without anxiety. 

By far the darkest side of such a religion is that 
which it presents to morality. The religious sense 

1 La Vega, Hist, des Incas, liv. v. cap. 12. 



310 



INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



is by no means the Yoice of conscience. The 
Takakli Indian when sick makes a full confession of 
sins, but a murder, however unnatural and unpro- 
voked, he does not mention, not counting it a crime. 1 
Scenes of licentiousness were approved and sustained 
throughout the continent as acts of worship ; maiden- 
hood was in many parts offered up or claimed by the 
priests as a right ; in Central America twins were 
slain for religious motives ; human sacrifice was 
common throughout the tropics, and was not unusual 
in higher latitudes ; cannibalism was often enjoined ; 
and in Peru, Florida, and Central America it was 
not uncommon for parents to slay their own children 
at the behest of a priest. 2 The philosophical moralist, 
contemplating such spectacles, has thought to recog- 
nize in them one consoling trait. All history, it has 
been said, shows man living under an irritated God, 
and seeking to appease him by sacrifice of blood ; the 
essence of all religion, it has been added, lies in that 
of which sacrifice is the sy^nbol, namely, in the of- 
fering up of self, in the rendering up of our will to 
the will of God. 3 But sacrifice, when not a token of 

1 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 345. 

2 Ximenes, Origen de los Indios de Guatemala, p. 192 ; Acosta, 
Hist, of the New World, lib. v. chap. 18. 

s Joseph de Maistre, Eclair -cissement sur les Sacrifices, Trench, 
Hulsean Lectures, p. 180. The famed Abbe Lammermais and 
Professor Sepp, of Munich, with these two writers, may be 
taken as the chief exponents of a school of mythologists, all of 
whom start from the theories first laid down by Count de 
Maistre in his Soirees de St. Petersbourg. To them the strongest 
proof of Christianity lies in the traditions and observances of 
heathendom. For these show the wants of the religious sense, 
and Christianity, they maintain, purifies and satisfies them all. 



THE TRUTH OF NATURAL RELIGIONS. 



311 



gratitude, cannot be thus explained. It is not a 
rendering up, but a substitution of our will for God's 
will. A deity is angered by neglect of his dues ; he 
will revenge, certainly, terribly, we know not how or 
when. But as punishment is all he desires, if we 
punish ourselves he will be satisfied ; and far better 
is such self-inflicted torture than a fearful looking 
for of judgment to come. Craven fear, not without 
some dim sense of the implacability of nature's laws, 
is at its root. Looking only at this side of religion, 
the ancient philosopher averred that the gods existed 
solely in the apprehensions of their votaries, and the 
moderns have asserted that "fear is the father of 
religion, love her. late-born daughter ; " 1 that " the 
first form of religious belief is nothing else but a hor- 
ror of the unknown ; " and that " no natural religion 
appears to have been able to develop from a germ 
within itself anything whatever of real advantage to 
civilization." 2 

Far be it from me to excuse the enormities thus 
committed under the garb of religion, or to ignore 
their disastrous consequences on human progress. 

The rites, symbols, and legends of every natural religion, they say, 
are true, and not false ; all that is required is to assign them their 
proper places and their real meaning. Therefore the strange 
resemblances in heathen myths to what is revealed in the Scrip- 
fees, as well as the ethical anticipations which have been found 
in ancient philosophies, all so far from proving that Christianity 
is a natural product of the human mind, in fact, are confirma- 
tions of it, unconscious prophecies, and presentiments of the 
truth. 

1 Alfred Maury, La Magle et V Astrologie dans V Antiquite et au 
Moyen Age, p. 8: Paris, 1860. 

2 Waitz, Anthropologic, i. pp. 325, 465. 



312 



INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



Yet this question is a fair one — if the natural re- 
ligious belief has in it no germ of anything better, 
whence comes the manifest and undeniable improve- 
ment occasionally witnessed — as, for example, among 
the Toltecs, the Peruvians, and the Mayas ? The 
reply is by the influence of great men, who cultivated 
within themselves a purer faith, lived it in their lives, 
preached it successfully to their fellows, and, at their 
death, still survived in the memory of their nation 
unforgotten models of noble qualties. 1 Where, in 
America, is any record of such men ? We are pointed, 
in answer, to Quetzal coatl, Viracocha, Zamna, and 
their congeners. But these august figures I have shown 
to be wholly mythical, creations of the religious fancy, 
parts and parcels of the earliest religion itself. The 
entire theory falls to nothing, therefore, and we dis- 
cover a positive side to natural religions — one that 
conceals a germ of endless progress, which vindi- 
cates their lofty origin, and proves that He " is not 
far from every one of us." 

I have already analyzed these figures under 
their physical aspect. Let it be observed in what 
antithesis they stand to most other mythological 
creations. Let it be remembered that they prim- 
arily correspond to the stable, the regular, the cos- 
mical phenomena, that they are always conceived 
under human form, not as giants, fairies, or strange 
beasts ; that they were said at one time to have been 
visible leaders of their nations, that they did not 
suffer death, and that, though absent, they are ever 
present, favoring those who remain mindful of their 



So says Dr. "\Vaitz, Anthropologic, i. p. 465. 



THE TRUTH OF NATURAL RELIGIONS. 313 



precepts. I touched but incidentally on their moral 
aspects. This was likewise in contrast to the major- 
ity of inferior deities. The worship of the latter was 
a tribute extorted by fear. The Indian deposits 
tobacco on the rocks of a rapid, that the spirit of the 
swift waters may not swallow his canoe ; in a 
storm he throws overboard a dog to appease the 
siren of the angry waves. He used to tear the hearts 
from his captives to gain the favor of the god of war. 
He provides himself with talismans to bind hostile dei- 
ties. He fees the conjurer to exorcise the demon of 
disease. He loves none of them, he respects none of 
them ; he only fears their wayward tempers. They 
are to him mysterious, invisible, capricious goblins. 
But, in his highest divinity, he recognized a Father 
and a Preserver, a benign Intelligence, who provided 
for him the comforts of life — man, like himself, yet 
a god — God of All. " Go and do good," was the 
parting injunction of his father to Michabo in Algon- 
kin legend ; 1 and in their ancient and uncorrupted 
stories such is ever his object. "The worship of 
Tamu," the culture hero of the Guaranis, says the* 
traveller D'Orbigny, " is one of reverence, not of 
fear." 2 They were ideals, summing up in them- 
selves the best traits, the most approved virtues of 
whole nations, and were adored in a very different 
spirit from other divinities. 

None of them has more humane and elevated traits 
than Quetzalcoatl. He was represented, of majestic 
stature and dignified demeanor. In his train came 
skilled artificers and men of learning. He was chaste 

1 Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, i. p. 143. 

2 H Homme Americai?i, ii. p. 319. 



314 



IXFLUEXCE OF X ATI YE RELIGIONS. 



and temperate in life, wise in council, generous of 
gifts, conquering rather by arts of peace than of war ; 
delighting in music, flowers, and brilliant colors, and 
so averse to human sacrifices that he shut his ears 
with both hands when they were even mentioned. 1 
Such was the ideal man and supreme god of a people 
who even a Spanish monk of the sixteeth century 
felt constrained to confess were c * a good people, 
attached to virtue, urbane and simple in social inter- 
course, shunning lies, skillful in arts, pious towards 
their gods." 2 Is it likely, is it possible, that with 
such a model as this before their minds, they received 
no benefit from it ? Was not this a lever, and a 
mighty one, lifting the race toward civilization and 
a purer faith. 

Transfer the field of observation to Yucatan, and 
we find in Zamna, to Xew Granada and in Xemque- 
teba, to Peru and in Yiracocha, or his reflex Manco 
Capac, the lineaments of Quetzalcoatl — modified, in- 
deed, by difference of blood and temperament, but 
each combining in himself all the qualities most 
esteemed by their several nations. TTere one or all 
of these proved to be historical personages, still the 
fact remains that the primitive religious sentiment, 
investing them with the best attributes of humanity, 
dwelling on them as its models, worshipping them as 
gods, contained a kernel of truth potent to encourage 
moral excellence. But if they were mythical, then 
this truth was of spontaneous growth, self-developed 
by the growing distinctness of the idea of God, a 

1 Brasseur, Hist, de Mexique, liv. iii. chaps. 1 and 2. 

2 Sahagun, Hist, de la Xueva Espaua, lib. x. cap. 29. 



THE CHARACTER OF PRAYERS. 315 

« 

living witness that the religious sense, like every 
other faculty, has within itself a power of endless 
evolution. 

If we inquire the secret of the hajypier influence of 
such an ideal in worship, it is all contained in one 
word — its humanity. " The Ideal of Morality," says 
the contemplative Novalis, " has no more dangerous 
rival than the Ideal of the Greatest Strength, of the 
most vigorous life, the Brute Ideal " Qdas Thier- 
IdeaT)} Culture advances in proportion as man re- 
cognizes what faculties are peculiar to him as man, 
and devotes himself to their education. The moral 
value of religions can be very precisely estimated by 
the human or the brutal character of their gods. The 
worship of Quetzalcoatl in the city of Mexico was 
subordinate to that of lower conceptions, and conse- 
quently the more sanguinary and immoral were the 
rites there practised. The Algonldns, who knew no 
other meaning for Michabo than the Great Hare, had 
lost, by a false etymology, the best part of their re- 
ligion. 

Looking around for other standards wherewith to 
measure the progress of the knowledge of divinity in 
the New World, prayer suggests itself as one of the 
least deceptive. " Prayer," to quote again the words 
of Novalis, 2 " is in religion what thought is in philo- 
sophy. The religious sense prays, as the reason thinks." 
Guizot, carrying the analysis farther, thinks that it is 
prompted by a painful conviction of the inability of 
our will to conform to the dictates of reason. 3 Origin- 

1 Novalis, Schriften, i. p. 244 : Berlin, 1837. 

2 Ibid., p. 207. 

3 Hist, de la Civilisation en France, i. pp. 122, 130. 



316 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 

ally it was connected with the belief that divine 
caprice, not divine law, governs the universe, and 
that material benefits rather than spiritual gifts are 
to be desired. The gradual recognition of its lim- 
itations and proper objects marks religious ad- 
vancement. The Lord's Prayer contains seven 
petitions, only one of which may perhaps be for a 
temporal advantage, and it the least that can be 
asked for. "What immeasurable interval between it 
and the prayer of the Xootk'a Indian on. preparing 
for war ! — 

" Great Quahootze, let me live, not be sick, find 
the enemy, not fear him, find him asleep, and kill a 
great many of him.*' 1 

Or again, between it and the petition of a Huron 
to a local god, heard by Father Brebeuf: — 

u Oki, thou who livest in this spot, I offer thee 
tobacco. Help us, save us from shipwreck, defend us 
from our enemies, give us a good trade, ami bring us 
back safe and sound to our villages." 2 

This is a fair specimen of the supplications of the 
lowest religion. Another equally authentic is given 
by Father Allouez. 3 In 1670 he penetrated to an 
outlving Algonkin village, never before visited by 
a white man. The inhabitants, startled by his 
pale face and long black gown, took him for a di- 
vinity. They invited him to the council lodge, a 
circle of old men gathered around him, and one of 
them, approaching him with a double handful of 

1 Narrative of J. R. Jewell among the Savages of Nootka Sound, 
p. T21. 

2 Rel de la N.uv. France, An 1636, p. 109. 

3 Ibid., An 1670, p. 99. 



THE CHARACTER OF PRATERS. 



317 



tobacco, thus addressed him, the others grunting 
approval : — 

" This, indeed, is well, Blackrobe, that thou dost 
visit us. Have mercy upon us. Thou art a Manito. 
We give thee to smoke. 

" The Naudowessies and Iroquois are devouring 
us. Have mercy upon us. 

" We are often sick ; our children die ; we are 
hungry. Have mercy upon us. Hear me, O Manito, 
I give thee to smoke. 

" Let the earth yield us corn ; the rivers give us 
fish ; sickness not slay us ; nor hunger so torment us. 
Hear us, O Manito, we give thee to smoke." • 

In this rude but touching petition, wrung from 
the heart of a miserable people, nothing but their 
wretchedness is visible. Not the faintest trace of an 
aspiration for spiritual enlightenment cheers the eye 
of the philanthropist, not the remotest conception 
that through suffering we are purified can be de- 
tected. 

By the side of these examples we may place the 
prayers of Peru and Mexico, forms composed by the 
priests, written out, committed to memory, and re- 
peated at certain seasons. They are not less authentic, 
having been collected and translated in the first 
generation after the conquest. One to Yiracocha 
Pachacamac, was as follows : — 

" O Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the 
beginning and shalt exist unto the end, powerful and 
pitiful ; who createdst man by saying, let man be ; who 
defendest us from evil and preservest our life and 
health ; art thou in the sky or in the earth, in the 
clouds or in the depths ? Hear the voice of him who 



818 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give us 
life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our sac- 
rifice." 1 

In the voluminous specimens of Aztec prayers 
preserved by Sahagun, moral improvement, the 
" spiritual gift," is very rarely if at all the object 
desired. Health, harvests, propitious rains, release 
from pain, preservation from dangers, illness, and 
defeat, these are the almost unvarying themes. But 
here and there we catch a glimpse of something bet- 
ter, some dim sense of the beauty of suffering, some 
glimmering of the truth so nobly expressed by the 
poet: — 

aus des Busens Tiefe stromt Gedeihn 
Der festen Duldung und entscklossner That, 
xsicht Schmerz ist Ungliick, Gliick nicht immer Freude ; 
"Wer sein Geschick erfiillt, dem lacheln beide. 

" Is it possible," says one of ihem, " that this 
scourge, this affliction, is sent to us not for our cor- 
rection and improvement, but for our destruction 
and annihilation ? O Merciful Lord, let this chas- 
tisement with which thou hast visited us, thy people, 
be as those which a father or mother inflicts on a 
child, not out of anger, but to the end that he may 
be free from follies and vices." Another formula, 
used when a chief was elected to some important 

1 Geronimo de Ore, Symbolo Catliohco Indiana, chap, ix., quo- 
ted by Ternaux-Compans. De Ore was a native of Pern and 
held the position of Professor of Theology in Cnzco in the lat- 
ter half of the sixteenth century. He was a man of great 
erudition, and there need be no hesitation in accepting this ex- 
traordinary prayei-as genuine. For his life and writings see 
Nic. Antonio, Bib. Hisp. Nova, torn. ii. p. 43. 



RELIGION AND ART. 



319 



position, reads : " 0 Lord, open his e} r es and give 
him light, sharpen his ears and give him understand- 
ing, not that he may use them to his own advantage, 
but for the good of the people he rules. Lead him 
to know and to do thy will, let him be as a trumpet 
which sounds thy words. Keep him from the com- 
mission of injustice and oppression." 1 

At first, good and evil are identical with pleasure 
and pain, luck^ and ill-luck. " The good are good 
warriors and hunters," said a Pawnee chief, 2 which 
would also be the opinion of a wolf, if he could 
express it. Gradually the eyes of the mind are 
opened, and it is perceived that " whom He lov- 
eth, He chastiseth," and physical give place to moral 
ideas of good and evil. Finally, as the idea of God 
rises more distinctly before the soul, as u the One 
by whom, in whom, and through whom all things 
are," evil is seen to be the negation, not the oppo- 
site of good, and itself " a porch oft opening on the 
sun." 

The influence of these religions on art, science, and 
social life, must also be weighed in estimating their 
value. 

Very many of the remains of American plastic 
art, sculpture, and painting, were designed for 
religious purposes. Idols of stone, wood, or baked 
felay, were found in every Indian tribe, without ex- 
ception, so far as I can judge ; and in only a few di- 
rections do these arts seem to have been applied to 
secular purposes. The most ambitious attempts of 

1 SaTiagivn, Hist, de la Nueva Espana, lib. vi. caps. 1, 4. 

2 Morse, Rep. on the Ind. Tribes, App. p. 260. 



C20 



INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



architecture, it is plain, were inspired by religious 
fervor. The great pyramid of Cholula, the enormous 
mounds of the Mississippi valley, the elaborate edi- 
fices on artificial hills in Yucatan, were miniature 
representations of the mountains hallowed by tradi- 
tion, the " Hill of Heaven," the peak on which their 
ancestors escaped in the flood, or that in the terrestrial 
paradise from which flow the rains. Their construc- 
tion took men away from war and the chase, encour- 
aged agriculture, peace, and a settled disposition, 
and fostered the love of property, of country, and of 
the gods. The priests were also close observers of 
nature, and were the first to discover its simpler 
laws. The Aztec sages were as devoted star-gazers 
as the Chaldeans, and their calendar bears unmis- 
takable marks of native growth, and of its original 
purpose to fix the annual festivals. Writing by means 
of pictures and symbols was cultivated chiefly for 
religious ends, and the word hieroglyph is a witness 
that the phonetic alphabet was discovered under the 
stimulus of the religious sentiment. Most of the 
aboriginal literature was composed and taught by 
the priests, and most of it refers to matters connected 
with their superstitions. As the gifts of votaries and 
the erection of temples enriched the sacerdotal order 
individually and collectively, the terrors of religion 
were lent to the secular arm to enforce the rights of 
property. Music, poetic, scenic, and historical reci- 
tations, formed parts of the ceremonies of the more 
civilized nations, and national unity was strength- 
ened by a common shrine. An active barter in 
amulets, lucky stones, and charms, existed all over 
the continent, to a much greater extent than we 



RELIGION AND ART. 



321 



might think. As experience demonstrates that noth- 
ing" so efficiently promotes civilization as the free 
and peaceful intercourse of man with man, I lay par- 
ticular stress on the common custom of making pil- 
grimages. 

The temple on the island of Cozuxnel in Yucatan 
was visited every year by such multitudes from all 
parts of the peninsula, that roads, paved with cut 
stones, had been constructed from the neighboring 
shore to the principal cities of the interior. 1 Each 
village of the Muyscas is said to have had a beaten 
path to Lake Guatavita, so numerous were the de- 
votees" who journeyed to the shrine there located. 2 
In Peru the temples of Pachacama, Rimac, and other 
famous gods, were repaired to by countless numbers 
from all parts of the realm, and from other provinces 
within a radius of three hundred leagues around. 
Houses of entertainment were established on all the 
principal roads, and near the temples, for their ac- 
commodation ; and when they made known the 
object of their journey, they were allowed a safe 
passage even through an enemy's territory. 3 

The more carefully we study history, the more im- 
portant in our eyes will become the religious senti- 
ment. It is almost the only faculty peculiar to man. 
It concerns him nearer than aught else. It is the 

1 Cogolliido, Hist, de Yucathan, lib. iv. cap. 9. Compare Ste- 
phens, Travs. in Yucatan, ii. p. 122, who describes the remains 
of these roads as they now exist. 

2 Rivero and Tschudi, Antiqs. of Peru, p. 162. 

s La Vega, Hist, des Incas, lib. vi. chap. 30; Xeres, Rel. de la 
Conq. du Perou. p. 151 ; Let. sur les Superstit. du Perou, p. 98, 
and others. 

21 



322 INFLUENCE OF NATIVE RELIGIONS. 



key to his origin and destiny. As such it merits in 
all its developments the most earnest attention, an 
attention we shall find well repaid by the clearer con- 
ceptions we thus obtain of the forces which control 
the actions and fates of individuals and nations. 



THE END. 



\ 



INDICES. 



I.-AUTHORS. 



Acosta, 56, 133, 279, 310. 
Adair, 26, 51, 189, 242. 
Alcazar, 61. 
Alger, 259, 272. 
Allen, Harrison, 14, 124, 126. 
Antonio, Nic , 318. 
Arriaga, 166. 
Avendano, 229. 

Baegert, 250. 

Baer, Von, 24. 

Balboa, 56, 193, 219, 243. 

Bancroft, H. H., 26, 39, 43, 49, 92, 

145, 161. 
Barcia, 152. 
Barraga, 110, 239, 254. 
Bartram, John, 240. 
Bartratn, Win., 109, 111, 135, 254. 
Basanier. 
Betanzos, J., 193. 
Beverly, 107, 303. 
Blomes, 54, 121, 178, 203. 
Borde, De la, 108, 119, 121. 
Boscann, 51, 110. 
Bradford, 143. 

Brasseur, Abbe, 13, 30, 42, 58, 66, 
71, 82, 91, 142, 185, 269, 314. 

Bressani, 95. 

Bruyas, 49, 60, 184. 

Buschmann, 23, 26, 30, 39, 59, 91, 
110, 196, 206, 252. 

Buteux, 118. 

Byington, 28, 150. 

Byrd, 190. 

Cabrera, F., 42. 
Campanius, 190. . 
Carriere, 2, 45. 
Carver, J., 286, 289. 
Catlin, 73, S7, 97, 200, 245. 



Charencey, H. de, 14, 92, 101, 198, 
200, 22*6. 

Charlevoix, 143, 146, 177, 249, 289, 

Cugolludo, 48, 87, 96, 230. 

Cop way, G., 17, 149. 

Coreal, F., 106, 257. 

Cortes, H., 202. 

Cusic, 113, 122, 185. 

Denis, F., 201, 227. 
Desjardins, 15, 191, 194, 221. 
D'Eveux, Yves, 52, 62, 131, 200. 
Dias, 86. 

D'Orbigny, 104, 130, 148, 199, 240. 
Dumont, 132, 220. 
Duponceau, 23, 58, 139. 
Du Pratz, 109, 257. 

Eastman, Mrs., 108, 163, 253. 
Echevarria y Veitia. 233. 
Egede, 51. 78, 106, 187, 208. 
Elliott, 50. 

Emory, 151, 200, 206. 
Epictetus, 215. 

French, 253. 

Gabb, 133, 156, 159, 251, 254. 
Gallatin, A., 23. 48, 76, 138. 
Gama, 75, 137, 169. 
Garcia, 52, 93, 98, 138, 194. 
Gibbs, G., 160. 
Goethe, 47, 188. 
Gomara, 21. 
Gregg, 242. 

Grimm, J., 9, 60, 93, 95. 
Guevara, 86. 
Guigniaut, 84. 
Guizot, 315. 
Gumilla, 97, 138, 218. 

323 



324 



INDICES. 



Haeser, 284. 
Hale, H., 17. 
Hall, C. F., 190, 195. 
Hammond, 114. 
Harris, 24. 

Hawkins, B., 43, 74, 80, 121. 

Hayden, 1 15. 

Heart, 242. 

Heckewelder, 58, 105. 

Helmont, A. von, 139. 

Hennepin, 114. 

Henry, A., 116, 177. 

Hodgson, A., 279. 

Holguin, 167, 200. 

Holtzmann, A., 250. 

Humboldt, A. von, 14, 20, 86, 96, 

207, 230. 
Humboldt, W. von, 19. 



Ixtlilxochitl, 58, 98. 

Jarvis, S. F., 40, 61. 
Juune, Le, 65. 
Jewett, J. R., 316. 
Jones, P., 118, 178. 
Joutel, 55. 

Kane, Dr., 304 
Kant, I., 44, 173. 
Kingsborough, 75, 197. 
Kirk, J. F., 173. 
Klemm, 245. 
Knortz, C, 43. 

Lafitau, 49, 159. 

La Hontan, 18, 97, 189. 

Landa, Diego de, 13, 82, 100, 132, 

230. 
Lapham, 100. 

Las Casns, 81, 100, 168, 194. 

Lederer, J., 16, 24, 86, 181, 303. 

Lizana, 204, 237. 

Long, 245, 246, 268. 

Loskiel, 47, 63, 272. 

Lund, Dr., 35. 

Lyell, C, 37. 

McCoy, 1 64. 
Mactie, M., 108, 190. 
Mackenzie, A., Ill, 158. 
Macrobius, 215. 
Maistre, de, J., 70, 310. 
Marcy, 241. 

Markham, C. B., 32, 168. 275. 
Martius, 38, 39, 59, 62, 293. 



Martyr, Peter, 11, 58, 81, 89. 

Matthews, W., 59, 60, 189. 

Maury, A., 311. 

Meyen, 32, 136, 262. 

Michelet, 209, 

Molina, 49, 58, 220. 

Montaigne, 19. 

Montesinos, 166, 193. 

Morgan. 54, 122, 169. 

Morse, J., 19, 86, 217, 310. 

Morton, S. G., 36. 

Mueller, J. G., 41, 60, 62, 85, 216. 

Mueller, Max, 7, 179. 



Navarrete, 89, 156, 235, 307. 
Neve, F., 217, 228. 
Noldeke, T., 115. 
Novalis, 315. 
Nuttall, 72. 



Oceola Nikkanoche, 271. 

Ore, G. de, 318. 

Oviedo, 52, 138, 216, 251, 257. 



Padilla, D., 161, 198. 
Pnlacios, 74, 98. 
Pandosv, 51. 
Payne, 135, 149. 
Peri-nock, 270. 
Perrot, Nic, 178, 266. 
Penn, W., 145. 
Pictet, 209. 
Pidgeon, 100. 
Piedrahita, 199. 
Pigafetta, 240. 
Pond, G. H., 63, 73. 
Prescott, 58, 111, 214. 
Puydt, de, 156. 
Pythagoras,. 70. 



Quen, de, 295. 



Ramsey, 26. 
Rau, C, 250. 

Richardson, 25, 184. 189, 220. 
Riggs, 51, 77, 1«0, 304. 
Rivero, 99, 229. 
Robson, J., 275. 
Rochefort, 199. 
Roehrig, 46, 115. 
Rogel, 61. 

Romans, B., 104, 242. 
Rosny, L. de, 38. 
Ruis, A., 274. 



INDICES. 



325 



Sahagun, 78, 90, 91, 98, 134, 136, 
198. 

Scherzer, K., 21, 42, 104 
Schombergk, 52. 

Schoolcraft, H. R., 28, 41, 54, 63, 79, 

180, 221, 247. 
Schwarz, 117, 122, 247. 
Seneca, 234. 
Sepp, 70, 83, 88, 232. 
Shea, J. G., 54, 61, 64, 135. 
Sibley, Dr., 219. 
Simon, 199. 
Smet, de, 73, 95, 163. 
'Smith, B., 69. 
Smith, J., 48. 
Spencer, II., 291. 
Sprague, 135. 
Sprengel, K., 140. 
Squier, E. G., 21, 40, 65, 100, 205. 
Staden, Hans, 86. 
Stanley, J. M., 296. 
Steinthal, 8. 
Stephens, 81, 321. 
Strachey, 181. 

Tacitus, 9. 

Tanner, J., 114, 126, 146, 1S2. 
Ternaux Compans, 56, 75, 134. 
Thomas, G., 137. 



Timberlake, H., 109, 120. 
Tonty, 109. 

Torquemada, 13, 119, 126, 170, 198, 

229 264 
Trumbull, J. H., 7, 8, 46. 
Tschudi, 99, 131, 229. 
Turner, W. W., 26. 

Ulloa, 193. 

Vater, 23. 

Vegsi, Garcilasso de la, 32, 56, 71, 

168, 262, 321. 
Velasco, 134, 235. 
Venegas. 95, 218. 
Vetromiile, E., 179, 188. 
Villagutierre Sotomayor, 98, 204. 
Volney, 139. 

Waitz, T., 2, 12, 41, 86, 165, 268. 
Waldeck, De, 124, 154. 
Whipple, 63, 134, 206. 
Williams, R., 239, 254. 
Winslow, 61. 
Wright, A., 150, 260. 

Xeres 57 321. 

Ximenes/F., 17, 42, 58, 66, 70, 92, 
211,269. 



II.— SUBJECTS. 



Abnakis, 166, 179, 188 
Acagchemem, 110, 
Achaguas, 226. 
Age of man in America, 35. 
Ages of the world, 229 sq. 
Agriculture, influence of, 23, 138. 
Akakanet, 62. 
Akansas, 109. 

Akbal, the sacred rase, 136. 
Akenatzi, 303. 

Algonkins, location of, 26, 35. 

myths, 63, 79, 95, 107, 113, 118, 
143, 151, 176, 181, 216, 220, 
225, 235, 240, 270, 317. 
See Blackfeet, Chipeways, 
Dela wares, Shawnees, etc. 
Alphabet, phonetic, 13. 

of Cherokees, 16. 
Aluberi, name of God, 59. 
Amalivaca, 174, 199.. 
Amautas, 17, 85, 235, 233. 



Anahuac, 29, 92. 
Ancestral worship, 274, 
Androgynous deities, 160. 
Angont, a mythical serpent, 143. 
Anguta, an Eskimo deity, 190. 
Antilles, natives of, 33, 111. 
Apaches, 25, 206. 
Apalaches, 28. 
Apocatequil, 165. 
Ararats, of America, 219. 
Araucanians, 34, 49, 59, 62, 168, 

220, 266. 
Arks, 273. 

Arawacks, affinities, 33. 

myths, 90. 

See Haitians. 
Arickarees, 111. 
Askarin, 181. 
Astrology, 298. 
Ataensic, 129, 137, 184. 
Ataguju, or Atachuchu, 165, 194 sq. 



326 



INDICES. 



Atatarho, Iroquois god, 123. 
Athapascan tribes, 25, 35, 210. 

See Dog-ribs, Apaches, %te. 
Atl, the moon, 137. 
Atnai, the, 215. 
Augurs, colleges of, 106. 
Aurora Borealis, 262. 
Aymaras, 32, 56, 195. 

See Peru, Quichuas, Ixcas. 
Aztecs, books and writing, 11-13. 

location, 30, 35. 

calendar, 76, 116. 

myths and rites, 22, 59, 71, 74, 
96,116, 141,144,185,196.219, 
221, 230, 243, 263, 276, 318. 

See Nahuas, Mexicans. 
Aztlan, 92. 

Bacab, 82, 101. 
Baptism, 131 sq. 
Bath, as a rite, 131. 
Bearded men, 190, 196. 
Bimini, 89. 

Bird, as a symbol, 106 sq., 163, 190, 

210, 221, 229. 
Bitol, name of God, 59. 
Blackfeet, 27, 99, 149, 241. 
Blue, as symbolic color, 47. 
Bochica, 199. 
Bogota, natives of, 32. 
Boiuca, 89. 

Bones, preservation of, 273. 
Books, of Aztecs, 11. 
Botocudos, 129, 216. 
Brazilian tribes, 106, 116, 129, 140, 
155, 161, 200, 262. 
See Tupis, Botocudos, etc. 
Bridge of Death, 265. 
Bri Bri Indians, 133, 159, 251. 
Burning the dead, 150. 
Busk, the, 73, 99, 133. 
Butterfly, as -wind-maker, 110. 

Caddoes, 96, 219. 
Calendars, of natives, 76. 
Caliban, 240. 

California, natives of, 49, 152, 159, 

218, 250. 
Calmecac, 301. 
Camaxtli,' 140. 
Cannibals, 33, 240. 
Cardinal points, adoration of, 69 

sqq., 124, 181. 
Caribs, affinities, 33. 

myths, 62, 108, IIP, 121, 163, 

240, 253, 273. 
Casas Grandes, 243. 



Catequil, See Apocatequil. 
Cauac. a Maya God. 82. 
Caves, remains in, 36. 

sacred. 243, 274. 
Centeotl, 23, 141. 
Chac, Maya gods, 82. 
Chahta-Muskokee tribes, 28, 35. 
Chakekenapok, 1S1. 
Chalehihuitlycue, 129, 161. 
Chalchihuitlatonae, 161. 
Chantico, an Aztec deity, 145. 
Chepewyans, 245, 266. 
Cherokees, alphabet, 16. 

affinities, 26, 135. 

myths and rites, 51, 63, 119, 
120, 134, 149, 189, 300. 
Chia. the moon, 140. 
Chibchas, 32, See Muyscas. 
Chichimec, 146. 
Chickasaws, 2S, 236. 
Chicomoztoc, 243. 
Chicuna, 168. 
Chicunoapa, 213. 
Chili, natives of, 23, 34. 
Chipeways, picture-writing, 10, 17. 

legends of, 23. 

language, 239. 

location, 27. 

myths and rites, 63, 73, 177. 

See Algoxkixs. 
Chipiapoos, 181. 
Chiviquanes, 271. 
Choctaws, 28. 

myths, 51, 150, 251, 279, 300. 
Cholula, pyramid of, 195, 196, 219. 
Cibola, seven cities of, 243. 
Cihuacoatl, 126. 
Cihuapipit'li, 263. 
Circumcision, 15S. 
Citatli, 137. 
Citlalatonac, 161. 222. 
Citlalicue, 160, 222. 
Clouds, as birds, 107. 
Coatlicue, 123. 
Cohuaxolotl, 145. 

Colors, svmbolism of, 47, 146, 179, 

1S3, 199. 
Comanches, 29, 30. 
Confession, rite of, 310. 
Con, or Contici, 56, 168, 191. 
Condorcanqui, Jose Gabriel, 206. 
Costa Bica, natives of, 156, 251. 
Couvade, the, 156. 
Coxcox, 217. 
Coyote, myths, 145, 247. 
Coyoteras, 241. 
Cozumel, 321. 



INDICES. 



327 



Craniology, American, 36. 
Creation, myths of, 150, 209. 
Creeks, 28. 

myths and rites, 51, 73, 79, 95, 
120, 143, 260, 292, 302. 

See Muskokees. 
Cross, as symbol, 97 sq., 198. 

of Palenque, 124. 
Crow Indians, 115. 
Cuba, natives of, 33. 
Cumana, natives of, 100. 
Cunas, 168. 
Cupay, See Supay. 
Cusic, 64. 
Cuzco, 22, 71. 

Dakotas. 29, 50. 

myths and rites, 63, 73, 73, 95, 
108, 122, 140, 163, 216, 253, 
277, 298. 

See Sioux, Osages, Sacs, etc. 
Darien, natives of, 129, 168. 
Dawn, myths of, 85, 167, 179, 187. 
Dead, burning the, 150. 
Delawares, 145, 147, 151, 175. 

See Algonkins. 
Deluge, myth of, 215 sq. 
Devil, idea of, 60, 268 sq. 
Dighton rock inscription, 10. 
Divination, by birds, 106. 

various means, 297. 
Dobayba, 125. 

Dog, myths of, 143 sq., 245, 256, 

265, 293. 
Dogi, 24. 

Dogrib Indians, 158, 245. 
Dove, as symbol, 111, 271. 
Dualism, no moral in America, 67 
sexual in religion, 153 sq. 

Eagle, as symbol, 109. 
Earthworks, 37. 

East, in myths, 93, 179, 199, 261. 
Ehecatl, 51, 195. 
Eldorado, 90. 

End of the world, myths of, 233. 
Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, 64. 
Epochs of nature, 213. 
Eskimos, location, 24. 

myths, 50, 78, 106, 143, 184, 
187, 190, 208, 239, 258, 262, 

266, 279. 

Fear in religion, 311. 
Fire-worship, 146 sq. 
Five Nations, 18, 26. 
See Iroquois. 



Flint-stone, in myths, 170, 184. 

Flood, myth, See Deluge. 

Florida, 90, 135. 

Forty, as sacred number, 97. 

Fountain of youth, 89, 135. 

Four, the sacred number of the red 

race, 68 sqq., 181, 193, 223, 

232, 257, 298. 
Four brothers, myth of, 181. 
Fox, in myths, 271. 
Frog, as symbol, 184, 185. 

Garonhia, 1S5. 
Geropari, See JuRIPARI. 
Gizhigooke, 183. ■ 
God, idea of,, 4, 44 sq. 

names of, 58. 
Gold, product of lightning, 125. 
Golden verses of Pythagoras, 70. 
Gourd, as symbol, 136. 
Greenland, natives of, 106. 

See Eskimos. 
Guaekcrnines, 165, 167. 
Guamansuri, 165. 

Guaranis, or Guaranays, 33, 86, 313. 
Guatemala, natives of, 17, 30, 74, 
82, 91, 257, 264. , 

See Mayas, Quiches, Nicara- 
guans, Costa Kicans. 
Guatavita, Lake, 130, 321. 
Guaycurus, 155, 158. 
Gucumatz, 124. 
Guiana, natives of, 33* 

See Arawacks. 
Gumongo, 95. 

Haitians, 33, 52, 80, 87, 190, 203. 

See Arawacks. 
Hand, symbol of, 198. 
Haokah, a Dakota deity, 164. - — 
Haravecs, singers, 17. 
Hare, the Great, See MlCHABO. 
Hare Indians, 158, 245. 
Hatteras, Cape, natives of, 22. 
Hawaneu, See Neo. 
Head, as seat of soul, 254. 
Heaven, of the. red man, 263. 
Heliolatry, See Sun-worship. 
Hell, 268, 270. 
Heno, 169. 

Heyoka, a Dakota deity, 95. 

Hiawatha, 186. 

Hidatsa, 59, 60, 137, 174, 189. 

Hispaniola, 89. 

Hiyoivyulgee, 79. 

Hobbamock, 61. 

Holy water, 132. 



328 



INDICES. 



Horned serpent, See Serpent. 
Horns, as lightning symbol, 119, 

164. 
Huastecas, 77. 
Huecomitl, 136. 
Huemac, 195, 198. 
Huitzil-opocktli, 123, 301. 
Hunting, its effect on the mind, 22. 
Hurakan, the storm god, 52, 83, 119, 

169,211. 

Hurons, 26, 4S, 111, 119, 143, 183. 
Hushtoli, 51. 

Hyorocan, See Hurakan. 

Idacanzas, a Muysca god, 199. 
Ideographic writing, 19- 
Idols, 319. 
Illatici, 56, 168. 

Incas, 32, 71, 125, 144, 149, 203. 

Innuits, 194. 

Inscriptions, 14, 16. 

lntrosusception, 7. 

Ioskeha, 64, 183 sq. 

Irin mage, 226. 

Iroquois, records of. 17. 

location, 26, 35. 

myth?, 63, 64, 85, 87, 113, 151, 
183 sq., 212. 

See Hurons, Five Nations, 
Six Nations. 
Isolation of red race, 21. 
Itaba-tahuana, 190. 
Itainapisa, 174. 
Itamoulou, 199. 
Itsika-mahidis, 59. 
Itzcuinan, Aztec deity, 144. 
Ix, a Maya god, 82. 
Iztac-mixcoatl, 171, 197. 

Jossakeed, 304. 

Juripari, 162. 

Jus primge noctis, 156. 

Kabul, a Maya god, 198. 

Kabun, 181. 

Kabibonokka, 181. 

Kan, a Maya god, 82. 

Kenai, the, 245. 

Kichigouai, gods of light, 1S3. 

Kiehtan, 61. 

Killistenoes, 289. 

King of fishes, 1S2. 

of serpents, 113- 
Kittanitowit, 61. 
Kneph, 50. • 
Knisteneaux, 275. 
Kolosch tribe, 146, 150, 245. 
Kukulcan, 124, 204. 



Labrador, natives of, 24. 
Languages, of red race, 8, 23. 

secret, of Incas, 32. 

secret, of priests, 302. 
Lenni Lenape, 27, 99, 175. 
Light, myths of, 150, 179, 1S7. 
Lightning, myths concerning, 108, 

117,163. 
Lipans, 25. 

Liver, the, in myths, 254. 
Lower Creeks, 104. 

Madness, 293. 
Magic, 285. 

Maize, distribution of, 23, 38. 

goddess of, 141. 
Mama Allpa, 239. 
Mama Cocha, 129. 
Mama Quilla, 138. 
Man, origin of, 238. 

word for, 239. 
Manco, 193. 
Manco Capac, 194. 
Mandans, 73, 87, 97, 111, 200, 244. 
Manhattan, natives of, 161. 
Manibozho, See MlCHABO. 
Mannaeicas, 268. 
Manoa, 90. 
Maraskarin, 181. 
Marriage rites, 155. 
Maryland, natives of, 203. 
Manes, 116. 

Manito, 53, 114, 118, 182, 317. 
Mayas, alphabet of, 73. 

affinities, 31. 

calendar, 76. 

myths, 48, 52, 81, 87, 96, 101, 
198, 203, 229, 269. 

See Yucatan, Quiches. 
Ma.yapan, 31. 
Mb'ocobi, 217. 
Mechoacans, 226. 
Meda worship, 133, 304. 
Medicine, word for, 46. 

lodge, 183. 

men, 28, 161. 

stone, 111. 
Memory, strength of, 18. 
Messou, See MlCHABO. 
Metempsychosis, 271. 
Mexicans, 12, 22, 171. 

See Aztecs, Nahuas. 
Meztli, 138, 141. 

Michabo, supreme Algonkin god, 
65, 122, 143, 152, 175 sq., 
216, 225, 235, 313. 

Michilimakinac, 177. 



INDICES. 



329 



Micmacs, 16. 

Mictlan and Mictla, 62, 95, 276. 
Mictlanteuctli, 198, 270. 
Migrations, course of, 62. 
Milky way, in myth, 261. 
Millenium, 207, 279. 
Minnetarees, 244, 246. 

See Hidatsa. 
Mixcoatl, or Mixcohuatl, 22, 52, 171. 
Mixtecas, myths of, 92, 226. 
Mnemonic aids, 16. 
Mohawk, 184, 185, 251. 
Monan, 226. 
Monotheism, 53. 
Monquis, 95. 

Montezuma, 151, 202, 205. 

Moon, myths of, 136 sq., 162, 166, 

184. 
Moscos, 77. 
Moxos, 104, 246, 299. 
Muluc, a Maya god, 82. 
Mummies, 275 sq. 
Mundrucus, 155. 
Muskokees, 28, 210, 242. 
Muyscas, 32, 86, 99, 140, 199, 321. 

Nahuas, 23, 30, 56, 75, 86, 123, 145, 

171, 196. 
Naming children, 134. 
Nanahuatl, 141. 
Nanibojou, See MiCHABO. 
Nanihehecatle, 195. 
Nanih waiya, 242. 
Nanticokes, 147. 
Nata, 222. 

Natchez, 28, 86, 132, 149, 220, 241, 
256. 

Natose, 99, 149. 
Naudowessies, 317. 
Navajos, 25, 81, 86, 87, 170, 204, 
220, 258. 

Nemqueteba, god of Muyscas, 86, 

174, 199. 
Neo, 54. 

Nesquallies, the, 190. 
Netelas, 110. 

Newfoundland, natives of, 55. 
New Mexico, natives of, 25, 29, 150. 

See Pueblo Indians, Zunis. 
Nezahuatl, 57. 
Nez Perces, 291. 

Nicaraguans, 30, 138, 152, 171, 216, 

251, 263, 
Night, goddess of, 139. 
Nile Key, the, 101. 
Nine Rivers, the, 267. 
Nootka Indians, 310. 



North, names of, -77, 181. 
Northmen, records of, 10, 24. 
Northwest wind, 182. 
Nottoways, 26, 48. 
Number, sacred, 68 sq. 
Numock-muckenah, 174. 

Occaniches, 303. 
Oenocks, 16, 181. 
Ojebways, See CHIPEWAYS. 
Oki, 48. 

Omecihuatl, 160. 
Ometeuctli, 160. 
Oneidas, 183, 185, 242. 
Onniont, 119. 
Onondagas, 186. 
Oregon, inscriptions, 10. 

natives, 25, 253, 291. 
Original sin, 134. 
Orinoco, inscriptions, 10. 

natives of, 138, 157, 218. 
Osages, 213. 

Otchipwe, See ChipewAY. 
Otomis, 171, 239. 
Ottawas, 95, 152, 175, 
See Algonkins. 
Ottoes, 86, 115. 
Ovisaketchak, 176. 
Owl, as a symbol, 110. 
Owl Bridge, the, 110, 266. 

Pacarina, 275. 
Paean tampu, 85, 193, 243. 
Pachacama, 191. 
Pachacamac, 57, 191. 
Pachacutec, Inca, 144, 191. 
Pacific coast, natives of, 34. 
Paemolnick, 240. 
Palenque, inscriptions, 14. 

cross of, 124. 
Pampas, natives of, 33, 62. 
Panes, a holy bird, 110. 
Panos, 14. 

Pan-paxil-pa-cayala, 92. 
Panuco, river, 31, 159. 
Paradise, mountain of, 83. 

the earthly, 91. 
Paraguay, natives of, 159, 161, 217, 

274. 
Paria., 89. 
Pash, 181. 

Patagonians, 33, 240. 
Pawnees, 73, 86, 157. 
Pend Oreiiles, 249. 
Peru, records of, 14. 

natives of, 32. 

divisions of, 71. 



330 



IXDICES. 



Peru, mvths and rites. 74. 106. 125. 

130, 133. 144, 147, 189, 191. 

218, 257.' 275. 301. 
See Aymaras. IwCAS. QuiCHCAS. 
Phallic worship. 154. 158. 
Picture writing. 12. 1S2. 
Pigeons, in myths. 210, 220. 
Pigueras. 165. 167. 
Pilgrimages. 321. 
Piuios. 200/ 
Plants, sacred. 292. 
Pleiades, the. 62, 218. 
Polysynthesis, 7. 
Popoyan. natives of. 271. 275. 
Powhatans, 48, 107,' 175,' 274. 
Pow-wow, 298. 
Pravers. 315 sq. 
Priesthood. 144, 283. 
Printing, bv Aztecs. 10. 
Pueblo Indians, 206, 226. 
^Puelches, 296. ' 

Qabavil, name of God, 92. 
Quadrigesimal, 97. 
Quahootze, 316. 
Quaker, name of God, 48. 
Quetzal, the. 111. 

Quetzalcoati. 91, 98, 124, 195 sq.. 

235, 313. 
Quiateot, 138. 
Quiches, records of, 17. 
affinities. 31. 

mvths of. 23. 65. 70, 83, 87, 92, 

96. 104. 189, 211, 223, 277. 
jSee Mayas. 
Quichuas. affinities. 32, 35. 

mvths and rites, 55, 96, 166. 

191, 243. 275. 
See Aymaras. Ixcas, Peru. 
Quipus, 14, 15, 147. 

Pace, unity of, 2. 
Racumon. a Carib god. 121. 
Rattlesnake, poison of, 114. 

as symbol, 115 sq., 124, 1S2. 

See Serpent. 
Raven, in myths. 211, 220, 229. 
Rebus, use of, 12. 
Red. as a symbol. 146. 
Resurrection of the body, 279. 
Rimac. temple of. 321. 
Rites, religious. 5. 
Root-diggers, 29. 247. 
Roots, of language, 7. 

Sacrifice, rite of. 310. 
Sacs, 86,' 115, 140. 



Salish. the, 190. 
! Sanscrit, flood myth, 217, 227. 
I Saraina, 186. 

Sauks, or Saukie, See Sacs. 

Savacon, a Carib god, 121, 168. 

Second sight, 288. 

Semen, myths relating to, 239. 

Seminoles", 28, 271. 

Sepoy, 181. 

Serpent, as svmbol, 112, 143, 171, 

29S. 303. 
horned. 10. 119. 
king of. 1 1 3. 
Setebos, a Patagonian deity. 240. 
Seven, sacred number, 21S, 243, 
269, 300. 
stars, See Pleiades. 
Sex, religion of, 153 sq. 
Shawano, 1S1. 

Shawnces. 27, 74, 86, 115, 118, 151, 

300. 

See Algoxkins. 
Shoshonees. 29, 145. 
Sidne. an Eskimo goddess, 190. 
Sillam Innua. 51, 78. 
Sioux, 29, 157, 253. 
Six Nations, 242. 

See Iroquois. 
Slates, used by Aztecs. 11. 
Snake plant, 292. 
horned, 10. 
See Serpent. 
Snakes, or Shoshonees, 29. 
! Soul, immortal, 249 sq. 

in bone, 276. 
I South, in myths. 181, 261. 
I Stone worshin, 170, 242, 271. 

Sua, 199, 205. 
! Sun worship, 56, 147 sq., 1S5. 192. 
Suns, Aztec, 230. 
Supay. or Cupar. 62, 268. 
Susquehannocks, 26. 
Syphilis, myths concerning, 141 sq. 

Tacci. 24. 

Tahkalis, 133, 146, 213, 271, 273. 
Tamoin. 275. 

Tamu. or Tamoi, 174, 199, 313. 
Taras. 171. 
Tarascos. 171. 
Taronhiawasron. 1S5. 
Taru, 129. 

Tawiscara, 65. 1S3 sq. 
Teatihuaean, 187. 
Teczistecatl. 138. 
Teo-chichimecs 171. 
Texan tribes, 247. 



INDICES. 



331 



Tezcatlipoca, 196, 223. 

Tezuque tribe, 150. 

Theg-Theg, 220. 

Thierfabeln, 103. 

Thlinkeets, 254. 

Three as sacred number, 168. 

Thunder storm, 122, 162 sq., 191. ' 

Tici, the vase, 136, 168, 191. 

Tiinuquas, 28. 

Tiri, a Yurucare god, 240. 

Titicaca, Lake, 32, 130, 192, 243. 

Titlahuan, 223. $ 

Tlacatecolotl, 110. 

Tlaloc, 78, 90, 118, 169, 197, 219. 

Tlalocan, 90, 96, 264. 

Tlalocavitl, 94. 

TIalxicco, 270. 

Tlapallan, 90, 196. 

Tlascaltecs, 30, 226. 

Tloque nahuaque, 59. 

Tobacco, its cultivation, 38. 

use, 292. 
Tohil, 170, 3 95. 
Tollan, See Tulan. 
Toltecs, 30, 81, 14 6, 195. 
Tonacaquahuitl, 98. 
Tonacateotl, 197. 
Tonacatepec, 85, 91. 
Tonantzin, 126. 
Tortoise, in myths, 185. 
Toukaways, 247. 
Tree of life, 98. 
Trinity, in America, 168. 
Tsalakie, 26. 
Tuira, or Tuyra, 52. 
Tulan, or Tula, 85, 90, 91, 196. 
Tulanzu, 244. 
Tupa, 33, 164, 200. 
Tupi-Guaranay stem, 33, 35, 62. 
Tupis, 33. 

myths, 52, 86, 155, 164, 200, 
226, 275, 293. 
Tuscaroras, 24, 26, 303. 
Tuteloes, 29. 
Tutul Xiu, 81. 
Twins, 166, 183, 310. 
Tzakol, name of God, 59. 
Tzatzitepec, 197. 



Ucayale, river, 14. 
lichees, 28. 

Ugalentz Indians, 146. 
Uncleanness of women, 156. 
Unity of human race, 2.. 
Unktahe, a Dakota god, 122, 140. 
Utah, or Utes, 30. 



Vase, as symbol, 136. 
Vera Paz, natives of, 31. 
Vestals, of the sun, 154. 
Vinland, or Vineland, 10, 24. 
Viracocha, 191 sq., 243, 317. 
Virginia, natives of, 24, 48, 86, 175, 

246, 274. 
Virgin-mother, the, 161, 180, 190. 
Votan, myth of, 92, 198. 

Wabosso, 181. 

Wabun, 181. 

Wakan, 46, 114. 

Wakinyan, Dakota gods, 108. 

Wampum, 15. 

War particle, 150. 

physic, the, 123. 
Wasi, a Cherokee deity, 174. 
Water, in myths, 83, 122, 129 sq., 

142, 163, 209. 
Wauhkeon, a Dakota god, 122. 
West, in myths, 180, 200, 261, 262. 
White, as symbolic, 179. 183, 188, 

199. 
towns, 189. 
Wihinasht, 30. 

Winds, as deities, 51, 53, 182, 212. 
Winnebagoes, 29, 236. 
Witchitas, 241. 
Wolf, in myths, 145, 247. 
Writing, modes of, 9-13. 
Wj^oming, 115. 

Xblanque, 277. 
Xelhua, 244. 
Xibalba, 65, 269, 277. 
Xoehiquetzal, 144. 
Xolotl, 145, 276. 

Yakamas, 51, 190. 

Yamo and Yama, 167. 

Yehl, a primeval bird, 190. 

Yoalli-ehecatl, 196. 

Yohualticitl, 13S. 

Yolcuat, the rattlesnake, 124, 195. 

Youth, fountain of, 89, 135. 

Yucatan, 13, 31, 71, 98, 236. 

Yuncas, 32. 

Yupanqui, Inca, 56. 

Yurucares, 217, 240, 278. 

Zacs, empire of, 32, 130. 
Zainna, 96, 198, 204. 
Zapotecs, 198, 226. 
Zea Mays, ^ee Maize. 
Zinzendorf, Count, 115. 
Zunis, 109, 219. 



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The Cliss-room Taine. History of English Literature, by H. A. 
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with chronological table, notes, and index, by John Fiske, Lecturer 
and Assistant Librarian in Harvard University. Large 121110. $2.50. 



